Industry Innovation: Utilizing WebRTC in the Healthcare Industry

“Industry Innovation” is a monthly series that highlights the benefits of implementing Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) solutions across different industries. In this article we will focus on the healthcare industry.

Healthcare providers are expanding their reach beyond the traditional brick and mortar building to real-time consultations, virtually accessed by patients through an on demand experience.  This means that with services such as Doctor on Demand, Teladoc and American Well, patients are able to receive live help, 24/7. With over 78 million consumers expected to use home health technologies by 2020, we will continue to see a rise in popularity amongst healthcare providers and an influx of new laws introduced by the government regulating remote healthcare services. While the notion of meeting your family physician online versus visiting your physician in person will not be accepted by everyone with open arms, it will greatly decongest patient waiting rooms and reduce appointments in the office that could have been effectively handled remotely.

Babylon Health & Push Doctor

Our Doctor on Demand article discussed some new and innovative approaches to US healthcare issues related to costs and service accessibility. Babylon Health and Push Doctor are a few UK based companies tackling some of the same issues in other countries around the world. It reinforces the fact that healthcare providers are taking advantage of new technologies, such as WebRTC, to expand their services beyond traditional means. Investors and the broader market are starting to understand the importance of reaching patients in new ways, which is made evident by financing allocated to businesses with the remote healthcare model. Push Doctor received $8.2 million in Series A funding on January 7, 2016 and shortly after Babylon Health received $25 million in Series A funding on January 13, 2016. It is cited that the full round for Babylon Health will close at or above $100 million.

MDLive

MDLive is a remote healthcare services provider in the US with big backing from Venture Capitalists to the tune of $73.6 million in funding. In November 2014, MDLive acquired Breakthrough Behavioral, a provider for online counseling and telepsychiatry. They enhanced the remote healthcare model by looking beyond the marketplace services of only providing on demand physicians from their website and apps.  MDLive decided to partner with Walgreens to provide telehealth services to users via the Walgreens Connect app. We expect to see others follow this trend of utilizing a vast network of physicians to provide additional services to their employees, staff and members.

In Conclusion

Strong growth is expected to continue for providing remote services in the healthcare industry.  It is anticipated to be worth $13.7 billion by 2018. As remote services become more of the norm, we will see a slew of providers offering online services making our healthcare systems a bit more efficient and flexible for patients. Technologies such as WebRTC are allowing this transformation in the healthcare services realm to occur at an accelerated pace. We are excited to see businesses around the world taking advantage of new and innovative solutions that provide added benefits to their end users.

About Blacc Spot Media, Inc.

Blacc Spot Media focuses on Web Real-Time Communications (WebRTC) development across web, mobile, native desktop and telephony implementations. Our team works on strategic projects developing custom applications, enterprise platforms and mobile applications for a wide array of clients. If you are interested developing your own WebRTC product or service, let us know how we can help you.

Take a look at our website for more information (https://www.blaccspotmedia.com) or email us at hi@blaccspot.com.