Tele-Med Movement

There is still some money left to be made in tele-medicine. With technology and M2M (machine-to-machine devices powered by cellular networks), the tele-medicine sector show blossom.

Startling stat alert!

"91% of small Healthcare Organizations suffered data loss or theft in the past 12 months," a study sponsored by MegaPath finds. The study (read it here) says that "All Patient Data is at Risk--91%t have had at least one data breach and 23% say their organizations experienced at least one patient medical identity theft incident."

"Healthcare organizations across the country face an aggressive threat landscape and strict compliance mandates that, coupled with limited IT budgets, stretch the effectiveness of their security teams and technologies," said S.L. Sweet, Director Managed Services, MegaPath.

Managed IT and outsourced network security and monitoring will be big. [see my article about that here.]

Infoweek points out how the Big 3 cellcos - ATT, VZW and Sprint - all jumped into tele-health in 2010. IDC has a study (big surprise, right?) that says, "Berlinsky noted that the transition from paper-based systems to digitized medical records and the growing potential market that would be eligible for some kind of connected health program adds up to opportunities that telecom providers cannot ignore.... According to IDC, the total addressable market for telecom providers in home tele-health in the United States will grow to 60.3 million households in 2015." Of course, would they ever say the market opp was tiny? I have never seen it. Always curves like the red one:

One example of why there is opportunity is: "patient-centered medical homes will reimburse physicians and hospitals for better managing their patients with chronic conditions, coordinating care, and reducing preventable re-admissions." This means monitoring. There are devices for the home built with wi-fi, bluetooth, cellular and Asterisk that monitor and dial in reports.

Watch for this: "aging in place technologies (e.g., remote patient monitoring appliances, home and fall sensors, medication dispensers), and mobile health applications to promote health and wellness, but to actually provide those devices along with services to help consumers use them more effectively."

Infoweek goes on to say that Service Providers should "Leverage core network services but develop healthcare-specific systems. Service providers should use their telecommunications, network management, and hosting service platforms as the foundation to develop programs specifically targeting healthcare."

EHR and the requirement for meeting meaningful use criteria means that you can be a trusted partner. "Digitizing patient records will force the integration of disparate technologies, devices, and data sets together."