Powerful Answers in Health Care

In his keynote address and the 2013 International Consumer Electronics Show, our CEO, Lowell McAdam  spoke about how networks and connected devices represent the backbone of innovation and detailed how Verizon is driving this ecosystem of creative ideas.

We know that our networks are key to our future, and we have spent the past two years building out our 4G LTE and fiber-optic networks.  But as we strengthen the core of our business, we also believe our technology can be applied in creative, innovative, collaborative ways to help solve big social issues and change lives for the better.

When it comes to tackling society’s biggest challenges, Lowell was right to say that health care is at the top of the list -- it will consume 19 percent of the Federal budget this year, more than any other single item.

Fortunately, we have a tremendous opportunity to address this problem in a powerful new way. The barriers to innovation in digital health care are finally coming down and we can use our technology to help the health care ecosystem flourish. And it’s not a pie-in-the-sky vision of maybes. It’s happening now, and we’re working with a lot of great partners to do just that.

We now have a network that can handle the bandwidth demands of sending MRIs, X-Rays and CAT scans over the Internet. We’re helping a company called Qi Imaging put a radiology platform in the cloud that can enhance two-dimensional images into 3-D or even 4-D, so you can see a heart beating or track the growth of a tumor over time.

We’re working with the FDA to get clearance on our mHealth platform, which will give clinicians and patients a better tool for managing chronic diseases. Between that and our HIPAA-enabled cloud platform, we will have a secure, private way for patients, doctors, and insurance companies to exchange information and share medical records in a mobile environment.

With big-data analytics, we’re helping the government and other payers root out fraud in the health care system. In a report to Congress three weeks ago, HHS cited the fact that Verizon’s system was up and running within 60 days. In the first year, our fraud prevention system processed more than a billion claims and saved the government $3 for every $1 invested. In another case, we used our system to analyze 2.5 million claims in a single day and found more than 13,000 suspicious claims -- representing more than $200 million in possible fraud.

Serving the Underserved

All this has the potential to not only save money, but spread access to quality health care to the people who need it most. We can help the chronically underserved manage preventable conditions like diabetes or poor nutrition and help save lives.

We’ve signed on as the technology sponsor for the Clinton Health Matters Initiative, launched by the William J. Clinton Foundation. Over the next three years we’ll go into medically disadvantaged communities around the country and do health “makeovers” that will put better tools for managing health in the hands of physicians and patients.

Our first project is in Coachella Valley, California -- a community where 25 percent of adults and 70 percent of children are living in poverty. We already have people on the ground in Coachella to figure out how to deploy practical solutions that will address these disparities. Our objective is to make these communities into a working laboratory for creating the health care solutions of the future.

Spurring Creative Innovation

Through our work in the Verizon Innovation Centers, we’re convinced that a collaborative model is the best way to create billions of dollars of social benefits … and grow the market at the same time. 

So our new $10 million Verizon “Powerful Answers” Award is designed to draw the best minds in the technology industry to figure out how to tap the capability of broadband networks – every network – to change the world for the better. We want to spur the development of innovative applications, devices and solutions that provide the most powerful answers in the fields of health care, education and sustainability. 

Seizing a Transformational Moment

We’re at a transformational moment in the development of digital health care. Advances in big data and secure connectivity have the potential to make the administering the health care system much more efficient. Telemedicine and a new generation of connected devices promise to make health care delivery mobile, convenient and widespread. If we can lower barriers in regulation and encourage creative innovation in this sector, we can take advantage of this technological turning point and change lives for the better.

Our mission, in every market we enter, to use our technology to solve the world’s biggest challenges. Health care is one of many. You can learn more at our website, verizon.com/powerfulanswers.