Imagine that your home, and everything around it, has been destroyed by a storm. No electricity, houses and buildings leveled, and you are in urgent need of medical care. Now imagine that 98 million other people are in the same situation. This was the scene in the Philippines in the wake of a devastating typhoon - people were stranded, transit was impossible and clinicians were desperately needed. Thanks to ingenuity, batteries, solar panels, and telemedicine solutions from AMD Global Telemedicine, physicians in the U.S were able to provide life-saving healthcare services to patients over 12,000 miles away.
To put modern telemedicine in context, think about a Skype call, only now the people involved are a doctor and a patient, and the technology infrastructure contains security safeguards for privacy protections. That’s it. The patient in one place, the doctor anywhere else in the world with internet access and an audio/visual connection between them. U.S.-based physicians exporting telemedicine, delivering care via telemedicine and saving lives around the world.AMD Global Telemedicine (AMD) has been implementing telemedicine networks for over 26 years, reaching patients in 98 countries including remote areas of Iceland, Greenland and Bolivia, as well as rural communities in the United States.
Exporting is a strategic initiative for AMD and on average, 50 percent of AMD’s sales are outside of the country. Like buyers in the U.S., foreign enterprises requested open account credit terms. However, as a small business, extending credit to international customers initially posed a significant financial risk to AMD, and not extending credit resulted in lost deals or deals that were significantly delayed due to stricter payment terms. Working with Risk Protection International and EXIM Bank, AMD executed an export credit insurance policy, empowering them to:
- offer open account credit terms to international buyers;
- protect the company’s financial health by mitigating the risk of nonpayment on foreign receivables;
- facilitate healthcare delivery anywhere in the world.
As an added bonus, exporting has driven an increase in AMD’s revenues as they expanded into new international markets and closed business with new customers. When asked what advice he would offer other small businesses about exporting, Eric Bacon, President AMD Global Telemedicine says,
“Do your homework. Exporting can be a major source of revenue if you understand countries’ import and licensure regulations. With that knowledge, exporting becomes a huge opportunity for businesses of all sizes.”
