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Problem: The best doctors in the world are those who are extremely specialized: the ones who have spent their lives studying a very particular part of the body in a very particular domain. However, right now the only way to get access to these doctors is by physically living near and/or around them. Could we democratize healthcare by allowing anyone to be seen by a specialist?
Solution: The business would focus on using technology (audio, video, and other IoT connected devices) to bridge the physical gap of patients and extremely specialized physicians who can provide care in extremely niche scenarios. I can almost imagine it as a personal, face-to-face WebMD for those who want to talk through particular niches of their health but do not have the time, money, or knowledge of how to find specialized doctor to help with their needs.
Some existing competitors include Eagle Telemedicine (video below), a company that offers specialized consultations for individuals through telemedicine.
There are a host of other examples of rural specialty care telehealth programs including the following reported by RuralHealthInfo.org
The Virtual Infusion Project increases access to infusion and oncology care in South Dakota, Iowa, Minnesota, and Nebraska.
The Summit Healthcare Telemedicine Program is implementing a broad range of telehealth approaches to improve access to specialty care for local residents of Navajo County, Arizona.
The TeleEmergency Program offers rural Critical Access Hospitals and community hospitals access to 24/7 live-video consultations with emergency medical clinicians.
The University of Mississippi Medical Center's Center for Telehealth created a telehealth center to deliver quality specialty services to rural, underserved areas of Mississippi.
A nonprofit founded in 2012, the Alabama Partnership for TeleHealth
In an effort to bring services to rural, elderly populations, the SD eResidential Facilities Healthcare Services Access Project is implementing telehealth services to reach patients at long-term care facilities.
Avera eCARE created a service that provides rural healthcare providers in South Dakota with 24-hour virtual access to specialty care physicians, nurses, and pharmacists.
… and more including The Marshfield Telehealth Program, the Telehealth Kidney Transplant Clinic at the Iowa City VAMC, The Kentucky TeleHealth Network, The Catalina Island Telemedicine Center, The Kansas Asthma Initiative, The University of Arkansas’ IDHI High Risk Pregnancy Program, the New Mexico Mobile Screening Program for Miners, the Eastern Oklahoma VA Health Care System (EOVAHCS) and the Cincinnati VA Medical Center's Tele-ICU Monitoring Center, and Project ENABLE (Educate, Nurture, Advise, Before Life Ends).
In such a saturated market, how would a new business even compete?
Perhaps the strategy would be to simply and roll-up. There is a need in every rural community for equal access to health care, however this is not the case today. Even through a multitude of different programs and non-profit initiatives with TeleMed, access and care is unequal. Thus, this business could serve as the platform or ground truth for enabling TeleMed across the country in all of the programs and non-profits that I mentioned above.
Already, many specialties are already using TeleMed. An AMA study published in Health Affairs found that based on data from the 2016 Physician Practice Benchmark Survey, a little more than 15% of physicians used telemedicine to communicate with patients.
The researchers found that specialists using telemedicine the most to interact with patients are:
Radiologists—39.5 percent.
Psychiatrists—27.8 percent.
Cardiologists—24.1 percent.
Specialists whose practices are using telemedicine the least to interact with patients are:
Allergists/immunologists—6.1 percent.
Gastroenterologists—7.9 percent.
Ob-gyns—9.3 percent.
Almost an entirely different set of specialists used telemedicine for interacting with other health care professionals. Specialists whose practices are doing this the most are:
Emergency physicians—38.8 percent.
Pathologists—30.4 percent.
Radiologists—25.5 percent.
My hunch is that in the next decade, these numbers will only continue to increase. This will especially develop even more as more and more firms realize the benefits of TeleMed: from lack of illness exposure, to increased flexibility, to increased quality of care, to reduced no-shows, and more.
As described by Market Data Forecast, “the global telemedicine market size is expected to reach $35.46 billion in 2020 and estimated to grow to $80.61 billion by 2025” especially given the tailwinds of the COVID-19 pandemic, increase of remote patient monitoring, and lowering costs of telemedicine. Grandview Research, another market sizing firm, similarly estimates that “The global telemedicine market size was estimated at $41.4 billion in 2019 and is expected to witness a CAGR of 15.1% during the forecast period.” Mirroring, the data from Market Data Forecast.
In any case Telemedicine is not only profitable, but when paired with the democratization of access to specialists it can also help to bridge the care gap that exists due to the locations in which people live.
Monetization: S
Contributed by: Michael Bervell (Billion Dollar Startup Ideas)