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Ariella
5/16/2016 11:05:27 AM
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telemedicine
This corresponds to what I found here:
By 2012, Verizon Chief Executive Officer Lowell McAdam said his company was "focused on enabling the transformation" of the health-care industry, backed up by the $10 billion the company spent over the past decade on fiber-optic networks, data centers and network security. But the health-care bet has yet to pan out.
"The carriers haven't done a good job of moving into the hospital setting and investing the time and money to live in the footsteps of the providers," said Lee Schwamm, medical director of telehealth at Massachusetts General Hospital. "It's always been a side business to them."
Both AT&T and Verizon have succeeded in building businesses handling data connections and electronic records for hospitals, but for the most part U.S. wireless carriers remain on the health care sidelines.
clrmoney
5/16/2016 2:55:56 PM
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Health check
Maybe they should check their apps or troubleshoot the problem for telemeding so that it can function properly etc.
afwriter
5/16/2016 5:38:15 PM
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Security
I think that above all else they need to worried about security and patient confidentiality.
JohnBarnes
5/17/2016 7:26:43 AM
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Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
As long as everyone else is proposing their favorite concern: the US private health care services sector tends to invest out at the ends of the supply network rather than in the central infrastructure, a natural consequence of having many small competitors setting prices with a market rather than a large single buyer as they have in other developed countries. Telemedicine requires a backbone infrastructure that nobody has much incentive to build. So your local doctor has a great set of toys that s/he somewhat underuses, but there's no big system to hook them into, because the investment money is staying in that local practice rather than funneling upward to the central system.
Ariella
5/17/2016 10:51:55 AM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@JohnBarnes With all the talk we hear about EHR, you'd expect that your doctor can just get yoru entire health history from his tablet. But that is not the case. I once asked my kid's pediatrician about it. She said that each office uses its own system, and they don't talk to each other. That's why when I had to get an X-ray done, I had to carry the disc over to the office to have them view it. We even had to do this with a surgical practice that was affiliated with the hospital at which the X-ray image was taken.
vnewman
5/17/2016 1:06:15 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@Ariella - I think it's getting better than it used to be, but it has a long way to go. Teaching hospitals affliated with universities have made greater inroads to centralizing patient data - at least within their own sphere. But still amazing in such a connected world, this industry remains so vastly disconnected.
Ariella
5/17/2016 1:43:25 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
< But still amazing in such a connected world, this industry remains so vastly disconnected.> @vnewman exactly so. There's a lot of potential in connection, but much of it has not yet been attained.
DHagar
5/17/2016 4:28:16 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@vnewman - "I think it's getting better than it used to be, but it has a long way to go. Teaching hospitals affliated with universities have made greater inroads to centralizing patient data - at least within their own sphere." Agreed - there has been tremendous progress within the health industry with their digitization of health records.
The "disconnected" frontier remains the patient and the consumers. This is a big universe of opportunity. I believe healthcare is waking up to it, but will have a learning curve; and to carriers, healthcare is just being discovered as a viable market now. Telemedicine should help drive this forward.
faryl
5/17/2016 4:33:05 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
It's interesting that this post mentioned Canada.
As a typical American, I sometimes forget that industries have opportunities in other countries. There seems to be a tendency to focus on HIPAA concerns when technology around healthcare is discussed, but that just pertains to developing the industry in the US.
I wonder how other country's regulations compare to ours.
batye
5/17/2016 4:38:04 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@faryl in a lot of the tning Canada do copy and follow USA regulations as we are very connected :)
DHagar
5/17/2016 4:50:46 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@faryl, good observations. Yes, HIPAA is a US regulation, but I believe that other countries are very data privacy conscious - maybe even at a level equal to or higher than ours; you remember the international reactions to the leaks revealed by Eric Snowden.
And I also believe there are probably easier opportunities to develop connected systems outside the US as their healthcare tends to be more centralized, either through government control and/or coordination. I believe ours is the most "ad hoc" system - both among providers as well as connections with patients/consumers.
Ariella
5/17/2016 5:07:57 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@Dhagar true, especially for those that use a one-payer system, it should be simpler to set up a centralized system of information.
DHagar
5/17/2016 5:27:58 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
@Ariella, good point! It may or may not be better health care, but it is certainly more "connected" and you are only dealing with a single set of standards.
faryl
5/28/2016 4:36:10 PM
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Re: Too much capital kept too far down the pyramid
Good point about it being more centralized!
(I've grown to assume that other countries do a better job of implementing laws around technology that are actually based on a knowledge of it and are at least slightly less politically - and more practically - motivated.
freehe
5/26/2016 4:51:39 PM
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Telemediine Efforts
Companies and independent service providers don't want to or can't afford to spend the money to digitize. In addition, the time it would take to train employees on the new systems will impact servicing patients. Companies know this would be a huge expense and are not willing to implement it. One of my doctors has an independent practice and is considering closing his business because admnistrative costs and the high costs charged by the health insurance companies are draining his profits. For him digitization would not be a wise investment. I suspect many other independent providers experience the same issue.
In addition, companies have to hire expert who have extensive experience digitization systems, this is a separate skill set and is not the same as installing a major system. Hiring the wrong staff could wreck havoc on a company.
dlr5288
5/27/2016 11:31:55 AM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Telemediine Efforts
Yeah to digitize everything would take a lot of time that they could be using on making clients happy and paying attention to their needs. I think it's a cool concept, but is it realistic? I don't know.
faryl
5/28/2016 4:41:37 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Telemediine Efforts
I'm not sure if it's a state or nation-wide thing, but doctors have been having to transition to digital files/systems in CA over the past few years.
Doctors may be reluctant and/or it may not be feasible to digitize existing records, but it really does patients a huge disservice to not have records in a format that are easily accessible for patients and other doctors; centralized so that doctors get a full, current picture of their patient's health, vs. just records from their practice; and transferrable for when they need to change doctors.
Unfortunately, like many regulations though, it does put a larger burden on the small, independent offices/doctors. :-/
DHagar
5/31/2016 8:00:13 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Telemediine Efforts
@faryl, yes. And you are making good pints also about the uneven investments required from doctors. Actually, asking the providers - from a 1-doctor office up to an entire health system - to build the infrastructure providing patient records, is a daunting proposition to the small providers. And, as you point out, it leaves the patients with gaps.
There must be a better way!
Opportunity
Digital health services - this looks like a very potential area. It is really surprising why local companies are not making any efforts to address gap in that area. This combination of Helathcare, Cloud ,networking and applications sounds a very promising collaboration that can yield to a real time digital healthcare solution. That real time feature would be invaluble for doctors to get access to any information related to patient, provider, pharmacy, labs etc.
Telus
Canadian carrier Telus has been successful with its e-health businesses, generating C$600 million in annual revenues and achieving near-30% profit margins.
This seems very impressive. And the numbers prove that fact.
batye
6/1/2016 1:07:01 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: Telus
@ms.akkineni in Canada Telus grows very rapidly, and I think it gonna keep growing....
AT&T and Verizon
The report notes that AT&T and Verizon have made some efforts to develop new business in this sector, which is already worth about $15 billion per year and growing fast, but "for the most part US wireless carriers remain on the health-care sidelines."
Good to know that there is some effort put in by At&T and Verizon. There still seems to be some gap in the area and that may be resolved by pulling in right alliance from Healthcare industry. That collaboration may kick start rapid growth in this area.
batye
6/1/2016 12:59:53 PM
User Rank Platinum
Re: AT&T and Verizon
@ms.akkineni yes as each player could see the option to make good profit, and everyone trying to get in the game...
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