Essential research for anyone addressing one of the key challenges of today's healthcare market - how to move care to the edge of a healthcare network and relieve pressure on core services.

Contents.

-Profiles of Oracle and Toumaz, IBM, Qualcomm, Card Guard, Broomwell Healthwatch and Vitaphone.
-Using remote diagnostics to disrupt the healthcare market.
-Delivering ehealth to consumers that incumbent healthcare providers ignore.
-Marketing ehealth services and devices to next generation healthcare providers.
-Remote diagnosis and for preventative healthcare.
-Moving beyond the call centre with automated diagnosis.
-Remote diagnosis and for preventative healthcare.
-Monitoring epidemics and other public health threats.
-Opportunities for ehealth providers, IT vendors and mobile operators.

Innovations in personalised healthcare and a growing interest in healthcare related consumer electronics will help ehealth providers to build and market services that disrupt the business models of incumbent healthcare providers.

The market for wireless based ehealth monitoring and diagnostics services is currently being driven by the incumbent healthcare provider desire to push key elements of the care process out towards the edge of their healthcare network. Health providers cutting costs by treating the patient remotely, rather than within a bricks and mortar hospital, has provided the basis for a number of ehealth trials and is contributing to the revenues of ehealth service providers such as Card Guard and Vitaphone.

However existing services tend only to address the healthcare needs of patients who are already receiving treatment. This report identifies an emerging ehealth model; one that is better equipped to intercept people before they enter the healthcare system. Technologies being developed by IT vendors such as Oracle and IBM will become key enablers of this new ehealth model. As well electronics companies who are attempting to shift medical device technology into the mainstream consumer electronics market are also playing an important role. Also highlighted is a growing market for end to end managed wireless and mobile connections such as Qualcomm's QConnect.

The current generation of ehealth providers often compromise their service model by working closely with incumbent healthcare providers. eHealth service providers will need to decide whether to persist with their existing ehealth model, or to take a new and more disruptive approach to the market. This report sees a plateau in the market for call centre based services as users migrate to cheaper online options. The report also notes that the adoption of automated medical diagnostic software will accelerate as ehealth service providers realise that centre operations will not scale economically to support thousands of patients.

The report also points to important applications of remote monitoring and diagnostics in the monitoring of epidemics and other threats to public health.

Who should purchase this report:-

-IT and medical device vendors.
-Wireless technology vendors.
-eHealth and healthcare providers.
-Decision makers in the public healthcare sector.
-Investors in the healthcare IT sector.
-Mobile operators.
-Other organisations active in ehealth provision.

Innovation is a key part of any modern healthcare system and this innovation takes place at many levels and across multiple disciplines. Healthcare providers have access to new treatment procedures, drugs and diagnostic equipment. However, there is one area where the healthcare sector has failed to deploy technology and expertise that is widely available and used to improve the efficiency of organisations in the financial services, manufacturing and retail sectors. While most healthcare providers have experimented with ‘ehealth' they have been slow to build the core IT services and instigate the change management programs that have to be in place before online healthcare services can be deployed.

Today, as healthcare providers start to modify working practices and build the platforms that will support ehealth services, they are finding that the ehealth model itself, as envisaged a decade ago, is evolving. This evolution has been brought about, in part, by the proliferation of low cost wireless devices, the emergence of intelligent search technology and the near ubiquity of Internet connectivity in developed countries.

Originally ehealth was regarded as an appendage to the healthcare providers' core business and was run as a separate operation. A special unit would be set up to support the ehealth system for a trial period. In most cases the incumbent healthcare provider discovered that, as the ehealth model was potentially disruptive to their business, there was no way to integrate the ehealth system with their core processes.

The new ehealth model is less reliant on the support from the incumbent healthcare providers and some services deployed using this model provide basic monitoring and diagnostics directly to the consumer. There is a wealth of new technology available to next generation ehealth providers, who are deploying ehealth services, including advanced healthcare related search technology and DNA profiling. Used in conjunction with wireless devices and Internet connectivity the new ehealth should act as an effective disruptor within the healthcare market. However, many independent ehealth providers have found it difficult to deploy this model in the form of a freestanding service. At the same time incumbent healthcare providers have been unwilling or unable to co-opt the new ehealth model without either disrupting their existing business model or compromising the new ehealth model itself.

This report examines issues and challenges associated with the new ehealth model and describes technologies and revenue models that can be used to support an effective deployment of a next generation, consumer facing ehealth service.