TM Forum 'Vibe': Is digital health moving toward prime time?

NICE, France – Digital health is certainly one of the hottest topics in the wireless industry, but many questions remain as to how the mobile operators can play in this growing market. At TM Forum Live this week I had the opportunity to meet with Detecon to better understand work being done in conjunction with Orange and Deutsche Telekom in order to help digital health become a reality.
The good news – there’s activity happening and the service providers are sponsoring programs such as these to better understand the opportunities for them. Large infrastructure players like Ericsson and Cisco have also come aboard, which adds a great deal of credibility.
The bad news – like all hot new markets, this space is overcrowded with more new entrants every day. This causes confusion with the potential partners and customers as to the right direction to move in and can slow the process of adoption. The key takeaways – there’s a huge amount of potential in this space for the organizations who figure out how to present a cohesive offer including the end user devices, mobile infrastructure, and hands on medical monitoring and guidance.