Apple, Google Ahead In Telemedicine Market; AT&T, Verizon Fighting To Gain Ground
Tech giants Apple and Google have forged ahead with telemedicine and connected health innovations, while telecom companies Verizon and AT&T have fallen short of their goals to be a part of the U.S. healthcare system’s transformation. Meanwhile, the digital health industry continues to grow; Bloomberg reports the U.S. market will reach $34 billion by 2020.
Goldman Sachs released a report last year that projected advances in digital health technology would save the U.S. healthcare system $300 billion by moving care out of the hospital and into the home as much as is technologically feasible. Routine visits, behavior modification, and chronic illness management — all of which drive up costs — are being digitized, and early research suggests these methods will improve patient outcomes.
Both Verizon and AT&T dove into the healthcare segment in 2009 when cell phone sales were slowing down, and both companies looked for ways to diversify and innovate, according to Bloomberg. Both companies made hefty investments in digital health solutions — such as Verizon’s Virtual Visits, and AT&T’s “smart” slippers and pill caps, which monitored patients remotely.
Unfortunately, those endeavors failed to find a foothold in the market and lost business to smaller, more targeted start-ups or locally grown telehealth solutions, such as MyCare — a 24-hour online service for Ohio-based patients serviced by the Cleveland Clinic.
“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. It’s always been a side business to them,” explained Lee Schwamm, medical director of telehealth at Massachusetts General Hospital, to Bloomberg.
In comparison, Google and Apple have been working closely with medical researchers and clinicians to address unmet needs in healthcare. Apple has opened its ResearchKit — a medical app developing platform — to research institutions, such as Duke University and Johns Hopkins, for use in clinical trials. Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) has been working to attract the top names in medical research to collaborate on projects that leverage its big data capabilities with the latest in chronic disease management.
Though the telecom providers have fallen behind, Bloomberg notes they are not out of the game. Verizon has supplied touchscreen tablets to 3,000 nurses working for Visiting Nurse Service of New York. AT&T is working on a system of sensors installed in wheel chairs, which can monitor battery life, inflate tires remotely, or notify care providers if the chair has tipped over.
“We are taking ideas from developers to prototypes and then to hospitals with the goal of seeing it through the eyes of the consumer and medical professional,” said Chris Penrose, AT&T’s senior VP of IoT, to Bloomberg.
Though the U.S. has the largest market for telemedicine ($14.4 billion in 2015), efforts abroad indicate the telehealth transformation is well underway globally. Bloomberg pointed out that Telus Corp., Canada’s third-largest telecom company, has had success entering the healthcare business and currently generates $465 million in healthcare revenue per year.
Additionally, the National Healthcare System (NHS) in the U.K. recently invested $6 billion to overhaul their existing electronic systems, websites, and remote monitoring capabilities.