Telcos eye business opportunity in health services, plan to leverage third-party content developers’ app-based solutions

NEW DELHI: Telecom service providers have set sights on information and communications technology (ICT)-based healthcare services as a new business opportunity which is still largely untapped in India.

Telcos have realised the potential and possible revenue stream in healthcare and have begun to focus on it, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and Medical Research Institute Chief Information Officer Rajesh Batra told ET.

Telecom service operators are, however, reluctant to share details, saying it’s too early to share their strategic healthcare roadmap, although a few of them have embarked on early-stage health- care applications development for mobile health services.

Vodafone India, India’s No. 2 carrier, said the company is already working on the healthcare segment and “something interesting” is going to happen in the near future, adding that it already has a healthcare portfolio in mature markets.

UK-based Vodafone offers managed mHealth services for improved and economically-efficient results that include solutions such as mobile relationship manager, patient reported outcome and device management for hospitals.

Service operators—who plan to mainly leverage app-based solutions developed by third-party content developers — are banking on India’s 900-million strong subscriber-base to serve individuals through healthcare portfolios that may include cloud-based solutions and networking services for remote patient monitoring and access to specialty care.

“The idea is to cut travel time and expenditure of patients coming from rural and remote areas. With mobile apps and cloud services, patients can be remotely monitored,” said a telecom executive, who did not wish to be named for the story.

Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications (RCom) has been one of the early healthcare trend adopters among telecom operators in India and is currently considering using machine-to-machine (M2M) technology to boost healthcare portfolio.

“We consider healthcare facilitation via mobile technology as a very important aspect of customercentric services and we have been working on it to make mobile healthcare a practical and convenient option for consumers,” RCom said.