The COVID-19 pandemic has been called the world’s largest forced proof of concept for collaboration technologies. Last spring, organizations across industries scrambled to deploy collaboration suites and get workers up and running from their homes. Already, these technologies are beginning to transform company cultures and workflows.

Many frontline healthcare workers, of course, have bravely donned their personal protective equipment and stayed in the field to deliver care. But collaboration technologies have revolutionized the work of a large number of clinicians and other healthcare workers, and we expect these solutions to have a lasting impact.

Here are five predictions we feel confident making about the future of collaboration in healthcare:

Unlike any other disease in recent times, COVID-19 has changed the way hospitals and other healthcare organizations use technology. Healthcare organizations are, of course, accustomed to handling patients with serious and highly contagious illnesses, but the nature of this pandemic has forced clinicians to adopt many of the same social distancing measures as professionals in other organizations. Mobile technology is helping these clinicians do their jobs as they follow social distancing guidelines.

While mobile devices and applications have made significant inroads in healthcare in recent years, clinical mobility is now more important than ever. Here are six ways that healthcare organizations are relying on clinical mobility to help them navigate the coronavirus crisis.

During the global pandemic, Emerging Technologies — the area of IT that I focus on — has seen an exciting influx of new technologies and offerings in a short amount of time that help keep people safe and connected.

Some of these technologies, especially robotics and drones, are causing disruption in the channel in a couple of ways: by providing new avenues for people to communicate in a socially distant world and sanitizing entire rooms autonomously. These emerging technologies are providing peace of mind to coworkers, students and teachers as businesses and schools create plans to reopen.

Voice user interface technology continues to transform some of the core activities of healthcare, such as the keeping of patient records and caregiver communication. At the same time, we’re seeing VUI integrate with a growing number of connected devices. The combination of VUI and the Internet of Things (IoT) can be powerful, delivering results where they matter most: in systems that allow caregivers and patients to approach care more efficiently.

The key to all these solutions is increased mobility. In healthcare, that’s a significant benefit, allowing caregivers to spend less time tethered to workstations and more time interacting with patients. Here are three ways in which VUI and IoT can make a difference together.

2020 has been an incredible year for Microsoft and especially for Microsoft Teams. With many organizations quickly adopting new ways for employees to work from anywhere, Microsoft Teams has seen a meteoric rise in usage for meetings and collaboration. In fact, Microsoft recently announced that by the end of April 2020, usage of Microsoft Teams had surpassed 75 million active users, a massive increase from the 44 million users reported the previous month.

One of the greatest assets of Microsoft Teams is that the platform is growing and adding new capabilities on a seemingly weekly basis. As organizations look for new ways to use the platform and further integrate Teams into their business processes, they will soon discover solutions for customized workflows, business process automation, direct integrations with Microsoft and third-party applications that provide a single pane of glass experience, and even industry vertical-specific functionality for supported tenants.

To help organizations discover some of these capabilities, I compiled a list of four unique use cases that organizations might consider for the next stage in their Microsoft Teams journey.

As in many industries, healthcare organizations are finding that employee expectations of technology are rising as millennials and Generation Z employees replace retiring workers. These younger healthcare professionals grew up with mobility, and they expect to be able to use mobile devices and apps to do virtually all aspects of their jobs.