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Telemedicine Healthy Business: Home-Based Telemedicine Delivered Over Fiber Developers can differentiate their properties, and broadband providers can differentiate their packages, by offering a home “health and wellness amenity.” Consumers say they’re ready to use it – and to pay for it. By Rob Scheschareg ■ MedConcierge The old saying about “Doing well by doing good” still applies today. Property managers, private cable operators, fiber-to-the-home providers and network operators all have the opportunity to provide an amenity that not only adds to the well-being of their customers but also generates incremental revenue streams and creates competitive differentiation during challenging economic times. That amenity is home-based health and wellness services. Property managers, developers and communication service providers are leveraging their high-speed networks to offer advanced health and wellness services that can attract baby boomers, active adults, employers and municipalities to their properties, communities and networks. “We see the growing demand among residents for health and wellness services delivered over fiber-based broadband communication networks,” says Thomas Reiman, president of The Broadband Group, a technology consulting firm. The Broadband Group is now introducing MedConcierge’s video consultation service to its clients, including some of the country’s largest developers. Consumers Need Online Health Services A number of new online services help consumers manage and improve their own health and that of their family members, young and old. Demand for these services is exploding as consumers see they can gain faster access to doctors, better understand their medical conditions and symptoms, and ultimately make health care decisions that are more informed, more accurate and more cost effective. Evidence of this growing demand is documented in several surveys conducted within the last year: • Video consultation with doctors is the top-rated non-entertainment application for consumers 55 and older. (Market research firm RVA) • 78 percent of consumers want to interact with health care providers online. (California HealthCare Foundation, an independent philanthropic organization) Learn more about broadband-based telehealth and telemedicine services at the Broadband Summit, April 27 – 29 in Dallas, Texas. • 70 percent of consumers are likely to use an online health care video consultation service when it is available to them. (Market research firm TNS Global) • 146 million US adults searched online for health information within the past 12 months. (Health care market research firm Manhattan Research) • In the past year, the number of visitors to health-related sites grew four times faster than the growth in overall Internet users. (Marketing research company comScore) Why are consumers so eager to find new models for health care Currently, they have two options – in-person doctor visits and do-it-yourself research – and neither of these options is working well. According to Stanford University professor Dr. Alan Greene, 210 million Americans are without access to a doctor on the day they need one. When they do see a doctor, the average time they spend with the doctor during an office visit is 7.5 minutes. In January, MedConcierge conducted health service assessments in several communities to find out how residents manage their own and their families’ health care, and to gauge their level of interest in using video consultation services. We found less than 30 percent of respondents satisfied with their current level of access to their doctors. The do-it-yourself approach is no better. Unable to procure timely appointments with their doctors, consumers are turning to online information. While our health service assessments found 71 percent of respondents researching health information online on behalf of themselves or their family, this information doesn’t necessarily help them make good decisions. 46 | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | www.broadbandproperties.com | January/February 2009
According to Stanford University professor Dr. Alan Greene, 210 million Americans are without access to a doctor on the day they need one. When they do see a doctor, the average time they spend with the doctor during an office visit is 7.5 minutes. There is an overwhelming amount of biased, generic or outright incorrect health-related information available to consumers on the Web, on TV and in print. This is producing anxiety among consumers, who are becoming increasingly responsible for health care decision making and cost sharing. Based on this information, many patients diagnose themselves inappropriately, ending up by spending money on ineffective treatments, medications, supplies, and physician and emergency room visits. In our health service assessments, 93 percent of the respondents doing online health research said they would prefer to have a live conversation with a doctor during these online sessions to review, discuss or suggest alternatives to the information they find. Consumers need a third option – health care that is easily accessible, responsive and effective. Property managers and communication service providers are advantageously positioned to meet this significant, and growing, need. According to Parks Associates analyst Harry Wang, “Service providers are in a unique, once-in-a-lifetime position to enter and service this growing service industry. The home will be the central location in the new preventative care model in health care applications, with broadband enabling home medical services, telemedicine applications and patient monitoring.” Based on our early results, we think consumers will use this “third option” for a number of purposes, including getting second opinions; gaining a deeper understanding of their medical conditions or the treatments they’ve been prescribed; finding out whether they need emergency help for sudden-onset pain or other symptoms; and seeking advice about alternative or complementary treatments their primary doctors may not have told them about. Many providers are already getting ready to meet this demand. In a poll that I took during a FTTH Council webinar in December 2008, 21 percent of participants indicated they were evaluating or finalizing plans for rolling out health and wellness services in 2009. Videoconferencing with doctors was the service that generated the highest level of interest (92 percent). Advantages to Network Owners By providing online health and wellness services to residents and subscribers, property developers and managers and communication service providers can generate additional revenue streams. Health care affects 100 percent of residents and subscribers, and the demand for improved health services will only Telemedicine increase in the years ahead. Health care demand, while not quite recession-proof, is not driven by economic cycles. In fact, history has shown that during recessionary periods the shift of responsibility for health care services to consumers accelerates. The current economic downturn is unlikely to be an exception. Video consultation services offer property managers and network operators several new revenue streams without incurring any capital expenditures. By simply adding a video channel or a link on the community portal, they can collect a percentage of: • each video consultation fee • each subscription purchased • sales of equipment, supplies, vitamins, etc.; and • advertising revenues. Our health service assessments indicate that residents are indeed willing to pay for such services. Forty-four percent of respondents said they “probably” or “definitely” would purchase an Internet or cable TV package that included the MedConcierge TV service over one that didn’t, and another 33 percent would consider it, based on further information. In addition, nearly a third of respondents “probably” or “definitely” would pay for a service that enables live Video Consultations with Doctors Can Save Money for Consumers Even avoiding a few unnecessary emergency room visits could be extremely beneficial for consumers. Out-of-pocket costs for an office or ER visit, including travel expenses, average $696 nationally; for persons age 45 – 64, the average cost for an ER visit was $832 in 2003 (according to the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality) and is certainly much higher today. Time savings are also significant: Average ER wait time was 56 minutes in 2006 and is growing as more people use the ER as their primary source of care and as the number of ERs declines. (According to the Centers for Disease Control, ER usage increased by 32 percent from 1996 to 2006, while the number of ERs fell from 4,900 to below 4,600.) In a 2008 study by Milliman, a health care actuarial firm, videoconferencing with doctors was shown to save employers, insurers and the government between $3.36 and $6.96 per member per month in health care costs. The majority of savings are in non-emergent ER visits and inperson physician visits. Other areas of potential savings that are still under study include chronic disease management, early disease detection and care management. January/February 2009 | www.broadbandproperties.com | BROADBAND PROPERTIES | 47
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