by Jim Lundy
Verizon announced that it was making a shift into the growing telehealth market opportunity with its announcement of BlueJeans Telehealth. Telehealth exploded with demand during the pandemic, and now it is an accepted way for healthcare providers to treat patients. This blog analyzes the move by Verizon Business.
Analysis: Verizon’s Bold Move
The Verizon BlueJeans telehealth solution will prove an interesting test case for this emerging market.
This is a bold and timely move for Verizon Business. It adds a very popular use case that BlueJeans is suited for and, at the same, time can leverage its cellular footprint. Telehealth, which leverages video conferencing for doctor to patient virtual visits is expected to grow over 20% a year, which is slightly ahead of Aragon’s new forecast for overall Collaboration.
What Is BlueJeans Telehealth?
Less than a year after acquiring web and video conferencing provider BlueJeans for $400M, the new Verizon BlueJeans Telehealth solution will leverage Bluejeans high quality video conferencing capabilities that includes the easy to use BlueJeans mobile app.
Some of the key capabilities that BlueJeans Telehealth will offer include:
• Access Controls
• Encryption and Fraud Detection
• Locked Meetings
• Moderator Controls
• Privacy Checks
Healthcare providers will be able to license the solution with a per visit billing model. Verizon Business BlueJeans Telehealth will also work seamlessly with existing electronic health record (EHR) providers.
Competing with Cigna/MDLIVE, Teladoc, and Others
Aragon expects that more video conferencing providers will enter the telehealth space, For now Verizon will compete with providers such as Cigna, which just announced the acquisition of MDLIVE on February 26th and others such as Teladoc.
The Race to Telehealth—An Extension of the Video Conferencing Market
While the pure play providers such as MDLIVE and Teladoc have dominated in this early market, expect nearly all major Video Conferencing providers to jump into this market. Existing providers have more resources and, in some cases, may be able to offer a better video experience due to their significant investments in video codecs.
The providers who have the resources and the APIs to make this happen include:
• Atos
• Avaya
• Cisco
• Microsoft
• RingCentral
• Zoom
Bottom Line
Verizon Business made a bold and a relatively fast dive into telehealth. We expect many others to follow suit, in part because this market should prove to be lucrative, and because it leverages the existing investment providers already have in audio and video conferencing.