The "launch" of eHealth projects is a crucial step in transforming online health initiatives from concept to reality, making these services available to everyone. At the Latin America TM Forum, more than 250 high-level executives and professionals from leading service providers and other key players in Latin America gathered in São Paulo for two days of conferences, interactive sessions, real-world case studies, and panel discussions.
Together, ISPM, Tavares, and Katia Galvane from Telefónica highlighted the key contributions of both companies to the TM Forum eHealth transformation projects. In a key presentation at the event, ISPM and Telefónica demonstrated how to build a digital health service by identifying what online health is, how it can be applied to traditional medicine, and focusing on common challenges. Their innovative contribution revealed the importance of communication with these services.
ISPM and Telefónica are creating their own projects and developing initiatives designed to foster and promote opportunities in the eHealth market. Its biggest challenge is uniting the two worlds of healthcare and telecommunications, which until recently were considered separate and unconnected.
eHealth is the application of healthcare through electronic means and telecommunications. Analysis of the online health market reveals that it comprises four main parts: patients, telecommunications operators, healthcare providers, and healthcare professionals. Each of these stakeholders has its own goals and values, which foreshadows a diverse and complex environment.
For example, patients and their families seek greater access to better home care. eHealth allows patients to rely on remote medical consultations, remote monitoring, and online support. This is a proactive and preventative solution. Constant monitoring allows medical professionals to care for their patients much more effectively, administering treatment as conditions worsen or even preventing problems before they occur.
Telecommunications operators, on the other hand, seek business opportunities in new and lucrative markets. By diversifying their services and improving relationships with clients, healthcare providers are able to add more value to their services and increase revenue as a result.
Healthcare providers have a strong interest in reducing hospital bed occupancy and treatment duration, as well as overall operating costs. They are also trying to increase the number of patients seen per medical professional, improve recovery, and reduce admission rates.
As online healthcare becomes more widespread, healthcare providers will be able to offer real-time monitoring of their patients and improve their preventive medicine models.
Four business opportunities were presented as "best practices" at the TM Forum InFocus. The four concepts are "sell to," "sell through," "sell of," and "sell with." "Sell to" involves supplying digital data and services. "Sell through" occurs when a solution is sold directly to the healthcare provider. "Sell of" refers to selling a healthcare tool directly to the customer. "Selling with" occurs when companies join forces to create integrated solutions and offer them to the market.
This all takes place in a "multi-vendor" environment, comprised of several companies, each with its own roles, responsibilities, risks, and outbreaks.
In such an environment, system interoperability is critical. Data is collected from numerous sources, which in turn need to be sent to vendors operating on their own platforms. The data needs to be aggregated, transmitted to the appropriate platforms, and presented in a way that can be monitored by medical professionals, who can then take appropriate action based on their analysis.
