Joining Matthew Holt (@boltyboy) on #THCBGang at 1pm PT 4pm ET Thursday for an hour of topical and sometime combative conversation on what’s happening in health care and beyond will be: double trouble futurists Ian Morrison (@seccurve) & Jeff Goldsmith; consultant focusing on platform business models and strategy Vince Kuraitis (@VinceKuraitis), & back after a long while analyst and Principal of Worksite Health Advisors Brian Klepper (@bklepper1).
Today there will be more discussion than usual about platforms and whether health care is ready for them!
You can see the video below. If you’d rather listen than watch, the audio is preserved as a weekly podcast available on our iTunes & Spotify channels
Let’s start with a pop quiz. Take 15 seconds to look at the list below, asking yourself the question “What do all these have in common?”
address books
video cameras
pagers
wristwatches
maps
books
travel
games
flashlights
home telephones
cash registers
MP3 players
Day timers
alarm clocks
answering machines
The Yellow Pages
wallets
keys
transistor radios
personal digital assistants
dashboard navigation systems
newspapers and magazines
directory assistance
travel and insurance agents
restaurant guides
pocket calculators
The commonality is that all of these were disrupted by smartphones and their operating system (OS) platforms — Google Android and Apple iOS.
Let’s consider a healthcare comparison. Ask yourself, “What do all these have in common?”
Primary care
Urgent care
Office visits
Hospitals
Inpatient
Outpatient
ER
Specialist access
Behavioral health
Diagnostics
Patient portals
Home health services
Medication administration\
Preventive care
mHealth apps
EHR functionality/apps, e.g.,
Scheduling & check in
Billing
eRX
Medication management
Referral management
Care planning
Care coordination
Social care
Patient education
Patient communications
The commonality is that all of these are potentially disruptable by Virtual Care Platforms (VCPs).
In this essay we ask the question “Will virtual care platforms become healthcare’s mega-platforms?” We believe the potential for such a scenario is strong. We describe and assess parallels between the evolution of the duopoly smartphone operating system (OS) market and the emerging virtual care platform market. Our intent is to describe a plausible scenario for the future – not to make a prediction.
