This Friday, December 12, for the second year in a row, GDT and its Collaboration Team of architects and engineers bring a live presence to the annual Cisco Santa Connection program at Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth. The Cisco Santa Connection delivers live-video visits to hospitalized children who would otherwise be unable to go see Santa and let him know what tops his or her wish list.
Last year more than 2,700 children at hospitals across the nation shared their wishes with a “North Pole” bound Santa and more than 5,800 children and their siblings received gifts or blankets. This year, the Cisco Santa Connection will bring Santa as close to in-person as possible at approximately 50 hospitals across North America.
The Cisco Santa Connection makes available state-of-the-art high-definition, Cisco Telepresence EX endpoint devices on mobile carts and Cisco Jabber on devices with web-enabled cameras — such as smartphones, tablets or laptops. The unified communication solution connects people across regional or global locations for training, consultation and specialized collaboration and brings an improved patient experience through more effective communications between medical staff.
On Friday, the GDT team will act as elves in the delivery of Santa to the children and families who will be spending the holiday at Cook Children’s.
About Cook Children’s
Cook Children’s Health Care System is a not-for-profit, nationally recognized pediatric health care organization comprised of eight entities – a Medical Center, Physician Network, Home Health company, Northeast Hospital, Pediatric Surgery Center, Health Plan, Health Services Inc., and Health Foundation.
Based in Fort Worth, Texas, the integrated system has more than 60 primary and specialty care offices throughout North Texas. Its service region includes Denton, Hood, Johnson, Parker, Tarrant and Wise counties, with an additional referral area encompassing nearly half the state.
About GDT
GDT is an award-winning technology integration partner with revenue nearing a billion dollars annually. GDT is a Cisco Gold Reseller with triple master specializations and an impressive list of awards that includes Cisco Architectural Excellence US: SP Architectures and Cisco Enterprise Partner of the Year for four consecutive years. With headquarters in Dallas, Texas, GDT maintains offices in the Northeast and on the West Coast of the US, as well as an international presence in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, India, Singapore, and the UK. GDT translates the latest ideas and technologies into inventive solutions that accelerate outcomes and realize the goals of IT and the vision of business leaders.
About Cisco Santa Connection
During the 2014 holiday season, approximately 50 hospitals throughout North America will participate in the Cisco Santa Connection Program.  This interactive experience enables hospitalized children to remotely connect and communicate with Santa using Cisco’s video collaboration technologies. Through the magic of the Internet, the children are connected over video directly to Santa’s workshop in the North Pole where they can share their wish lists directly with Old St. Nick. After a personal conversation with Santa, children can join their families and enjoy a holiday party complete with gifts at the hospital.  The Santa Connection Program was developed seven years ago to provide children and their families a bit of holiday cheer and happiness during their hospital stay. For more information, please contact Sarah Rich (sarich@cisco.com).
Press Contact
Darjon Bittner
GDT
214.857.6229
darjon.bittner@gdt.com