Healthcare, Mobility and Digital Transformations

Healthcare is one of those industries that will be most impacted by SMAC (social, mobile, analytics and cloud) developments.  It is information based.  Information, as we all know, is easily digitized, analyzed, stored in the cloud, and shared via mobile devices.

Here is a personal example.  Yesterday, I was experiencing stomach ailments and jumped on the website, WebMD.  I then added some reminders on my iPhone regarding health practices that I want to follow.  Ideally, I would engage with my doctor on non-serious issues via a mobile app.  I could record my symptoms and have her review and advise me no matter where in the world I am at the moment.  Our crazy healthcare system in the USA, however, would not know how to handle this simple mobile services or the payment for them.  I can only hope that someday logic will prevail.

Here are some of the key reasons mHealth is being transformed today:

• The recognized need by providers, insurers, and governments to improve services and reduce the costs of caring for those with chronic illnesses.
• The emergence, and proliferation of smartphones, broadband internet access, dedicated remote patient monitoring devices, and patient-centric applications
• Patients increasingly understand how mHealth technologies can help them better communicate with providers and manage their health.
• The rapid movement toward standards that will form the backbone for interoperability within the health industry.

If you are a healthcare industry software vendor or systems integrator with some clever and cool healthcare related solutions please share them with us in the comments section of this article, or email me at kevin.benedict@cognizant.com.  I would love to learn and write about them.

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

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Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Eugene Signorini

I was able to spend time with and interview mobility expert and former Yankee Group enterprise mobility analyst, Eugene Signorini, this week in Miami, FL at the Enterprise Mobility Exchange.  He is a brilliant guy with a wealth of knowledge and experience.  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=022KZ6sdHLs&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Bill Moylan

I was in Miami this week at the Enterprise Mobility Exchange 2013.  While there I met up with mobile expert Bill Moylan, Global VP of Alliances for ClickSoftware, and interviewed him about new "context aware" mobile apps.  Enjoy!

Video Links: http://youtu.be/ztoL-CqTaXE

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Expert Video Series: Bob Egan

This week I had the privilege of meeting and interviewing renown mobility expert and industry analyst Bob Egan.  In this interview we focus on failure.  How can a company guarantee their mobility project will fail!  Enjoy!

Video Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq1mw77GOhI&feature=share&list=UUGizQCw2Zbs3eTLwp7icoqw

*************************************************************

Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.

Mobile Data as a Competitive Advantage

The success of companies today is less dependent on their physical assets, and more dependent on their ability to competitively utilize data.  Just think of companies like Kodak, Borders, Blockbuster, etc., that had great physical assets but could not effectively make the transition into the data driven digital era.  In the new whitepaper Code Rules: A Playbook for Managing at the Crossroads, the authors Malcolm Frank, Ben Pring and Paul Roehrig provide examples of this theory and recommendations for supporting it.  

This theory resonates with me.  I speak weekly with service companies that want to support a real-time environment that will provide situational awareness of all field operations, but their IT infrastructures are not capable of supporting a real-time environment.  This is a problem as it prevents effective use of data which limits their competitiveness.

Let's image a scenario as follows - two service companies are competing for a large industrial HVAC (heating, ventilation, air, condition) contract.  Company A can commit to an eight hour SLA (service level agreement) to be onsite for repairs.  Company B can commit to a two hour SLA.  Which company has a competitive advantage?

Company B has full and real-time situational awareness of the location, job status and qualifications of all of their employees and resources and can quickly and dynamically change their assignments and schedules and get them to the point of need.  Company B has a better "logistics of information" system which results in a competitive advantage.

Think about what it takes to support a real-time environment.  It requires a different kind of IT architecture and infrastructure than many companies have today.  It would be a mistake to think this is an enterprise mobility problem.  It is a company problem.  Today, real-time data is everything.  It is not enough to only review end of quarter numbers.  If there are problems in your processes or operations, they should be recognized and fixed as they happen.


There is a saying I read the other day that I really like, "If your customers are adopting technology at a faster rate than you are supporting it, you are opening up an opportunity for your competitors."

Service companies need to recognize there are important sources of data (code halos) around at least five specific areas that should be properly managed and utilized:

• Customers
• Products/materials/supplies
• Employees
• Partners
• Enterprises/Organizations

This data needs to be captured, processed, analyzed, reported and acted upon in real-time.  Although mobility is a key component of this, the IT infrastructure of most companies needs to be updated to support it, and management must have a business strategy in place that prioritizes the recognition and exploitation of "code halos" in all of their plans.
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Kevin Benedict, Head Analyst for Social, Mobile, Analytics and Cloud (SMAC) Cognizant

View Linkedin Profile

Read the whitepaper on mobile, social, analytics and cloud strategies Don't Get SMACked

Learn about mobile strategies at MobileEnterpriseStrategies.com

Follow me on Twitter @krbenedict

Join the Linkedin Group Strategic Enterprise Mobility

Full Disclosure: These are my personal opinions. No company is silly enough to claim them. I am a mobility and SMAC analyst, consultant and writer. I work with and have worked with many of the companies mentioned in my articles.