Now that Congress has enacted health care reform, and the FCC has called for ramped-up attention to telehealth in the national broadband plan, some service providers may be wondering how to get in on the action. And there will be good reason to do so. The recent health care reform bill, combined with money from the 2009 economic stimulus act, should provide up to $50 billion over five years for health information technology, according to technology research firm Pike & Fischer. On top of that, the FCC wants to establish a Health Care Broadband Infrastructure Fund subsidy as it works to bring telehealth to all parts of the country.
For carriers, then, there are some key aspects to consider before jumping into the world of telehealth.
First, sources say the recent health care bill doesn’t stand to impact telemedicine deployments that much.
“The pie will get bigger but I don’t think anything is going to drastically change” on the network side, said Sharon Montgomery, government and education solutions vice president at Qwest Communications International Inc. (Q).
But speaking of networks, it’s crucial to make sure the proper infrastructure is in place. On the network side, bandwidth capacity and quality must be top-notch. “This is a 24-7 reliability issue,” Montgomery said.
Traffic and connectivity for services such as electronic medical records and X-rays also must be very secure, similar to requirements within the financial sector. The aim is not just to protect patient data – the FCC also wants networks to be able to keep talking to proprietary nationwide backbones that link government and academic researchers to public and private health care providers.
That brings up another important element for operators to remember: Customers don’t have to just be doctor’s offices or hospitals. End users further include insurance companies, medical equipment manufacturers and pharmaceutical and life sciences companies, said Nancy Green, managing principal of health care at Verizon Business (VZ).
To that point, peoples’ identity is just as critical as network security. Experts on the network’s various endpoints need to be credentialed to receive and handle the information in question, Green said.
Yet, getting that far requires service providers to employ knowledgeable sales teams. And a consultative focus is absolutely crucial, sources say.
“You really have to make a commitment to understand the market, to understand what telemedicine is and isn’t,” said John Scarborough, co-founder and managing partner of Colorado-based IP5280, a VoIP communications provider for businesses. IP5280 recently beefed up its telehealth expertise with the acquisition of CEWest and partners with other companies to provision an overall health IT platform. “It’s a consultative approach,” Scarborough said.
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