Health IT, Hospitals

Is a healthcare industry ‘overwhelmed with change’ delaying patient engagement solutions?

All-encompassing patient engagement solutions are inevitable. But are the current concerns over health IT regulations […]

All-encompassing patient engagement solutions are inevitable. But are the current concerns over health IT regulations and healthcare reform delaying implementation?

That’s one potential takeaway from the early rollout of Verizon’s Converged Health Management platform, which made its official debut in October. Since then, the company has started some early tests with a hospital and a pilot program with a self-insured employer, among others. But, at the moment, the biggest challenge in getting buy-in is that many healthcare companies have bigger fish to fry, Verizon says.

“Industry trends that are in the works are putting a burden on our customers,” said Julie Kling, Verizon’s director of product management, mobile health solutions. “Healthcare reform is having an impact.”

Verizon’s health management platform is meant to be all encompassing and leverage its mobile and high-tech capabilities. The platform collects data from wireless medical devices and send it securely to the cloud. It will predict worrisome health trends based off the data, and take a gamification approach by providing increasing rewards to patients who are on the system and hitting healthy goals. What’s more, the platform is FDA approved, which Verizon thinks will give it a strong advantage over competitors.

Now all they have to do is sell it. Kling estimated the sales cycle for its platform at six to 18 months.

But along with healthcare reform, Kling said transitions to accountable care organizations and the adoption of the ICD-10 standards remain all-encompassing challenges.

“One of the things I’m noticing that we wouldn’t have anticipated is that the industry is quite overwhelmed with change,” she said of the challenges of finding buy-in for the product. “That has to be taken into consideration.”

However, it’s also becoming clear that future customers will iterate off the platform. Kling said potential customers are pitching them on new uses for their platform.

At the moment, Kling said: “Anyone taking risk in healthcare is who we want to talk to.”

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