Here's a deal that Steve Linke, Associate Director Open Development at Verizon Wireless hinted at last month at MobiHealthNews Presents, Everywhere Healthcare: Verizon Wireless announced an "initiative" with BL Healthcare, a number of customers and third-party providers to jointly trial next-generation solutions for the delivery of remote healthcare applications and services to patients.
According to the press release circulated by Verizon Wireless, the trial aims to provide a unique approach for addressing issues associated with access to quality healthcare and rising healthcare costs. The wireless carrier notes that BL Healthcare will become an "ecosystem developer" for Verizon Wireless:
“Verizon Wireless selected BL Healthcare as an ecosystem developer that best aligned with our vision of remote, patient-focused, next-generation healthcare,” said John Maschenic, director of healthcare solutions for Verizon Wireless. “The BL Healthcare platform, combined with the Verizon Wireless network, will help healthcare providers select various applications and services based on their patients’ conditions and needs, giving the provider an active role in defining and managing a patient healthcare and wellness program.”
If the trial leads to an official deal between the two companies, BL Healthcare stands to become the platform on which Verizon Wireless builds a home-based health management service. The announcement invites third party developers to work with BL and Verizon Wireless to "generate incremental revenue by marketing innovative new applications and services that leverage their expertise and protocols."
Here's how BL's CEO sums it up:
“Verizon Wireless has developed a unique and compelling vision that will change how healthcare-related services are delivered,” said Michael Mathur, president and CEO of BL Healthcare. “We believe that this will result in a new paradigm for healthcare management that will put the patient in control of managing their health and wellness and will result in dramatic improvements in the overall quality and efficiency of healthcare while reducing costs. We are proud and excited to be working with Verizon Wireless as a partner to make this vision a reality.”
BL Healthcare offers a number of devices for home health that include wireless-enabled TV set boxes, wireless hubs and standalone touchscreen monitors that connect to the Web via the cellular network (assumedly through Verizon Wireless.) Here are three of BL's products:
BL Healthcare's TCx Interactive System is a remote care management platform that aims to make it easy to collect patient vital sign data and enables interactivity via a digital touch screen display that allows patients to see vital sign information, watch educational videos and interact with their care providers with messages or videoconferencing. According to BL, The TCx-I System is designed to wirelessly receive data from many types of medical monitoring devices. The system is not only wireless, however, it also enables other connection types, including telephone, Ethernet and cellular.
While it has not disclosed which of BL's devices are being used for the trial, given the wireless focus and touchscreen display, I'd put my money on the TCx-I System.
The "all-in-one" wireless touchscreen device is also likely the BL Healthcare device that Steve Linke referenced during our mobile carrier discussion panel at MobiHealthNews Presents: Everywhere Healthcare last month in Las Vegas. Linke said that Verizon Wireless embedded devices group has gotten more proactive about reaching out to healthcare device companies to embed wireless connectivity.
While we have yet to confirm it, it seems likely that this wireless-enabled, touchscreen unit fits profile of the type of device Linke described to a "T". We are curious to learn more about this initiative as it develops. While this is the likely device in play here, Verizon Wireless may have also opted to another BL device, which would take the services to a whole new platform:
Instead of installing a new touchscreen monitor into the patient's home, it is possible that Verizon Wireless is instead (or also) testing BL Healthcare's television-based offering called TVx. BL describes this as a "Fully Interactive Care Management" set-top box, which turns the patient's own television into a personal health channel that comes equipped with its own remote control.
Yes, wireless is still at work here: BL notes that this system is a "completely wireless home system" that includes vital sign monitoring, interactive messaging and queries, multimedia education and high-quality video visits much like the dedicated touchscreen monitor offering described previously.
Verizon Wireless' parent company Verizon is pushing its new fiber-based television and Internet service offerings FiOS, and tying those into healthcare services is an understandable and savvy undertaking. We see that approach as more of a Verizon deal than a Verizon Wireless deal, however, which makes the dedicated and wireless-enabled touch screen monitor the likely offering for this trial.
For more on the BL Healthcare and Verizon Wireless deal, read the press release here
