Tuesday, September 13, 2011

The real McCoy? AT&T appoints Chief Medical (Information) Officer. Is mobile healthcare for real now?

Are you feeling good about the mobile healthcare market?

At what point does the hype deliver? I've been hearing talk about mobile healthcare and well-being for more than a decade. And it makes perfect sense. Nearly 100% of the populations of most developed market are connected 100% of the time. Sensors of all sorts are cheap and getting cheaper. The enablers are in place. So, what happens now?

I came across an AT&T press release about the creation of an executive position called “Chief Medical Information Officer.” The title is being filled by a physician with an MBA named Dr. Geeta Nayyar who will guide AT&T's “ForHealth” venture.

Note that Sprint recently appointed a “chief healthcare executive” to create a strategy for that operator’s health venture. As telecommunications has become an integral part of the healthcare infratructure, operators are positioning themselves to become more than a bit pipe. The potential for value-added services is certainly somewhere for some player.

As hardware and services become more commoditized, all mobile players should now ask themselves, do we need a top-level CMO (Chief Medical Officer)? Should all handset vendors have a central role for mobile health ventures, looking at the new opportunities along with the regulatory aspects of that market? Should infra vendors feel for their place in well-being? Are the APIs looking good to enable a new market?

So, is it time to get well soon?


AT&T Press Release >>

Mobile healthcare. Is it now the real McCoy?




"DiabetesManager:" keeping subscribers connected to life.

1 comment:

Michael said...

Well, this would certainly raise the bar for quality in mobile hardware and software. Perhaps they could add a "downloader is still alive" count to the ratings on Android Market.