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VerizonCare: Can You Treat Me Now?

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This summer, analysts were abuzz when Verizon announced its acquisition of AOL. This is probably not the last news we will hear about consolidation and convergence of healthcare, telecommunications, media, and mobile.

This summer, analysts were abuzz when Verizon announced its acquisition of AOL. The conventional wisdom seemed to be that the synergies will be around using AOL videostreaming delivered over Verizon pipes using mobile devices. Looming in the background is the question of how this platform can be used in Sick Care and preventive medicine.

This is probably not the last news we will hear about consolidation and convergence of healthcare, telecommunications, media, and mobile. With medicine moving from bricks and mortar to an expanded digical (digital and physical) model, health communications and media companies will become integral parts of care delivery, information, and education. After all, 6.8 billion people in the world have a cell phone.

Global VerizonCare will create both challenges and opportunities and open up many markets in developing countries with emerging middle classes demanding access to state of the art care and technology. Particularly for those in remote and difficult to access areas outside of the megacities, the hope is that communicare will improve access, reduce costs, and raise quality and the human experience.

Sick Care is starting to look a lot more like a pumps and pipes business. The doctor treating a patient will be only the first episode of what will probably be a long-running prime time show.

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