It was over dinner that I asked veteran telecommunications journalists and analysts: what’s hot? The unified response, “industries.” The proverbial it’s not about telco, it’s what different sectors are doing with it . . . So I made it my mission to dig deeper for concrete examples.

Healthcare touches us all, and it’s a sector that’s undergoing profound change. So I banked my research on the e-Health breakout session.

Consider this regarding Healthcare:

• The costs and health risks for people taking in-hospital treatments are huge.
• Medical exam results are increasingly digitalized.
• Insurance companies have begun requiring more guarantees that their healthcare reimbursements are necessary.
• In the coming years over 60% of the world populations will be over age 60.
• 70-80% of healthcare costs are driven by chronic disease.
• And not directly linked but a factor, the consumerism of mobile devices is growing, and with it the expectations to be able to get your information where, when, and how you want it.

Orange Business Services has a growing “e-Health Care Communications” department to meet these needs. The goal is to accompany patients and elderly people on their health care journeys. Orange Business Services helps to assure the safety of medical data during its transportation and storage, but also provides services that improve lives, and business. “Integrating the bi-polar,” as Fons Trompenaars emphasized.

My favorite example was a home dialysis machine. Rather than spending four hours every day in a dialysis center, kidney disease patients would be able to hook up while sleeping at night. The telecommunications magic would be to allow a company to manage the machine from long distance. That’s four more hours of living each day!

What about that new drug you’re waiting on that may increase your ill mother’s lifestyle and longevity? Getting new meds to the market can be quite the ultra-healthcare-marathon, especially considering how long clinical trials can take to set up, processes, make sense of and report into regulation authorities.

But what if participants input their trial drug reactions directly into the database from a mobility device? This would create more efficiency and get your mom her long-awaiting medication, much sooner.

The healthcare sector is huge, and needs and opportunities are vast. More later on other innovation examples . . .

Let’s just hope what will become commercialized will be, as Dr. Daniel Thorniley said, “affordable innovation.” Well I think you should actually insert ‘sustainable’ before innovation . . .

Any juicy examples or needs you can think of?

Best,

Kate

Credit: © Yanik Chauvin - Fotolia.com