ISPM’s partnership with Telefonica catalyses eHealth initiatives at the TM Forum´s Latin America InFocus
Summary:
ISPM demonstrates practical steps to transforming digital health initiatives through the adoption and innovative application of business process standards in emerging Latin American markets. Thanks to enhanced service assurance from NetVision, ISPM delivers the quality and performance needed to meet health care provider needs and support new business models for CSPs
São Paulo, Brazil and London, UK, 27th May 2014. ISPM, a leading vendor of service orchestration and assurance software for telecommunications and IT infrastructure, showcased recent efforts to catalyse eHealth markets at TM Forum’s Latin America Infocus conference. In partnership with Telefonica, the largest telecommunications operator in Brazil, ISPM demonstrated practical steps through which emerging eHealth services can be realised and delivered.
The ‘operationalisation’ of eHealth projects is a crucial step in transforming eHealth initiatives from concept to reality, making such services available to all. At the TM Forum’s Latin America InFocus event, over 250 senior-level executives and professionals from major service providers and other key players in Latin America gathered in São Paulo for two days of lectures, interactive sessions, real-world case studies and panel discussions.
Together, ISPM’s Washington Tavares and Katia Galvane from Telefonica highlighted key contributions from both companies to TM Forum eHealth transformation projects. In a key presentation at the event, ISPM and Telefonica showed how to build a digital health service by identifying what eHealth is, how it can be applied to traditional health care, and by focusing on the common challenges. Their innovative contribution revealed the importance of communications to such services.
Both ISPM and Telefonica are creating their own projects and developing initiatives that are designed to encourage and promote the eHealth market opportunity. Their biggest challenge is to unite the two worlds of health care and telecommunications, which until recently were seen as different and unconnected.
eHealth is the application of health care through electronic media and telecommunications. Analysis of the eHealth market reveals that it is composed of four primary stakeholders: patients, telecom operators, healthcare providers and health professionals. Each of these stakeholders has their own goals and values, providing for a diverse and complex environment.
For example, patients and their families seek greater access to better home care. eHealth allows patients to rely on remote medical consultations, remote monitoring and online support. This is a proactive and preventative solution. Constant monitoring allows medical professionals to manage their patients far more effectively, administering treatment for worsening conditions or even preventing problems before they occur.
Telecom operators on the other hand, seek business opportunities in new and lucrative markets. By diversifying the services they offer and by enhancing customer relationships operators are able to add more value to their services, and as a result increase revenue.
Health care providers have great interest in reducing hospital bed occupancy and treatment duration as well as overall operational costs. They are also seeking to increase the number of patients treated by each medical professional and to improve recovery and reduce admission rates.
As eHealth care becomes more popular, health care providers will be able to offer real-time monitoring of their patients and to make improvements to their preventive medicine models.
Four business opportunities, which are among the “best practices” of TM Forum, were also presented at InFocus. The four concepts are “sell to”, “sell through”, “sell of” and “sell with”. “Sell to” involves the provision of data and digital services. “Sell through” occurs when a solution is sold directly to the healthcare provider. “Sell of” concerns the sale of a directly to the customer as a health tool. “Sell with” happens when companies come together to create integrated solutions and offer them to the market.
This all takes place in a “multivendor” environment composed of multiple companies, each one with its own role, responsibilities, risks and outbreaks.
In an environment like this, it is essential to have interoperability of systems. Data is collected from numerous sources, which then needs go to providers operating on their own platforms. The data needs to be aggregated, transmitted to the appropriate platforms and presented in a way that it can be monitored by medical professionals, who can then take appropriate action, based on their analyses.
ISPM’s experts are sharing their experiences in catalysing eHealth initiatives at TM Forum Live! 2014 in Nice. The team is available for interview and further comment, on request.
About ISPM
ISPM is a leading vendor of flexible service assurance and management software for telecommunications and IT infrastructure. Today, we actively manage more than 100,000 critical resources.
We are experts in delivering outstanding service assurance and management solutions, enabling our customers to optimise service performance, enhance customer experience and create new revenue opportunities.
Since 1998, ISPM has implemented projects in leading Communication Service Providers (CSPs) and in large retail, finance and infrastructure companies, supporting them in both operational efficiency and customer service.
ISPM serves global customers, with global standards (ITIL, FCAPS, eTOM) and global partners (InfoVista, EMC, eG Innovations, Fluke Networks and QlickView).
In addition, the company is a member of the TM Forum, a global, non-profit industry association focused on enabling service provider agility and innovation.
