Riding on the surge of interest in telecommunications created by this month’s launch of the National Broadband Plan, Verizon Business has announced a partnership with Cisco to boost video conferencing.

The Verizon Immersive Video Conferencing Service for Cisco TelePresence, which was announced this morning and will be ready for use by April, creates a platform upon which users can create face-to-face video meetings between parties in different locations. The service combines Verizon’s portfolio of communications and collaboration solutions with Cisco’s TelePresence technology.

“As businesses expand beyond their traditional office walls, we have found that deploying advanced collaboration tools such as telepresence can have a big impact on an organization’s performance,” said Anthony Recine, vice president of network and communications for Basking Ridge, N.J.-based Verizon Business. “Our new service facilitates the reservation, builds the visual bridge and manages the overall experience, so customers can zoom in on the encounter, whether they use their own facilities or an established public room.”

The new service may fill an important role in healthcare, which is seeing a dramatic increase in telemedicine and telehealth projects. Verizon launched its own telehealth collaboration service last August, and Cisco is touting its HealthPresence technology in the California Telemedicine Pilot Project, which was launched in February in 15 sites in California.

Nancy Green, of Verizon’s healthcare practice, said Verizon’s “bridging technology” will allow healthcare providers in distant locations to converse by “immersive video,” using cloud-based technology to connect secure networks.

“Video collaboration can be very difficult,” she said. “This is just the first step.”

Kaveh Safavi, vice president and global lead for Cisco’s healthcare practice, said the California Telemedicine Pilot Project allows Cisco to develop a secure platform upon which healthcare providers can not only communicate with each other, but exchange data and collaborate on clinical decision-making. Speaking during the HIMSS10 conference and exhibition earlier this month in Atlanta – where Cisco officially unveiled its HealthPresence platform – he said telemedicine needs to move beyond two doctors talking to each other by phone or video to incorporate providers, patients, specialists and others collaborating to improve clinical and business outcomes.

Green said telemedicine and telehealth will catch once the platforms are set up and sustainability is demonstrated. That will most likely involve establishing a network that can be used for clinical visits, business meetings, even education and training.

The most important outcome, she said, will be improvement in clinical decision-making.

“Anything that lowers the percentage of being re-admitted to the hospital,” she said.