With a strategy based on four lines of solutions for healthcare service providers, Telefónica is seeking to gain ground in the healthcare area, developing new business opportunities to take advantage of a clear reality: the traditional model of medical care is experiencing a profound transformation that will only be successful if the changes are accompanied by solutions provided by ICTs.
Over 150 professionals work in the Operator’s healthcare section: 40 of them are attached to the global division named Telefónica Digital and the rest are dedicated professionals assigned to each local eHealth unit, in each of the countries where the company has a presence. The focus, however, is on five principal markets: the United Kingdom, Spain, Argentina, Brazil and Chile.
Four basic product lines
Remote management of patients, Telefónica’s star product, consists of providing services in all aspects related to patient monitoring, generally for patients with chronic diseases: the company can monitor them remotely and help to ensure that the patient can stay in their natural environment, that they suffer fewer acute episodes that lead to hospital admittance, leading to a better quality of life for patients and a reduction of costs for healthcare organizations. Telefónica, in every market, has noted that demand will exist in the future in this line and thus provides solutions for more efficient management of an ageing population, in which chronic diseases are the principal cause of death and cause greater costs for healthcare organizations. Telefónica Europe has managed to work with the public sector in this field while in Latin America it has aimed, at least over the past two years at the private sector.
The second line of solutions is the management of medical images aimed at making image diagnosis more efficient, with imaging networks, diagnostic networks, and radiology rings that facilitate remote diagnosis and second opinions given over a network.
Thirdly, the company offers a platform that makes it possible to manage demand for healthcare in a more efficient and patient-focused manner, administering the relationship through different channels: appointments that can be made using the telephone or a website, or even an automatic voice system that makes appointments automatically, leading to a more efficient healthcare resource and providing healthcare advice adapted to each patient.
The fourth, mobile tele-care focuses not just on the healthcare environment but also the social environment of patients who are dependent or have disabilities, providing them with a service that allows them assisted mobility: a panic button, fall monitoring, pressure monitoring, etc. In Europe this market has developed well because the public sector has subsidized these kind of initiatives. In Latin America, in contrast, this kind of product is more clearly being rolled out in the private sector.
