The Orange glow of health
Orange has had a dedicated e-health unit in place since 2007. The unit is headed by Thierry Zylberberg, who spoke to Telecoms.com about the the intricacies of the health sector and the best ways for telcos help it improve efficiencies, and drive new revenue streams for themselves.
June 15, 2011
In 2006, the then Orange CEO Didier Lombard asked executive Thierry Zylerberg to conduct a strategic review of opportunities for business growth in a variety of vertical sectors. Zylerberg concluded that the health sector offered Orange great potential. The sector’s IT infrastructure was underdeveloped, leaving an opening for the telco to leverage expertise in integrated systems and service management.
In line with these findings, Orange Healthcare was set up in 2007. While the carrier had been working with the medical sector in France, this was the first time a group-wide initiative had been established to tackle the market internationally. E-health is now one of the central pillars of the Conquest 2015 strategy that Orange unveiled in 2010.
Zylberberg says that three key drivers have propelled e-health to prominence in recent years; the increasing cost of healthcare provision, the growth in chronic disease and intensifying demand in markets where populations are spread across large areas.
“The cost of health is exploding around the world, and all health systems are desperately trying to find ways of bringing that cost down—or at least trying to control the explosion,” he says. “Improving IT is one way of doing that. Meanwhile we have the rise of chronic disease, which is linked to the fact that the global population is ageing.
“This creates a structural change in the way that health expenses are handed out. More and more money is being spent on long term illness and less on acute care. Managing long term illness is about treating the patient without them needing acute care.
“Finally, there is the scarcity of doctors in many countries, which is creating the demand for different forms of remote medicine,” he says.
While Orange has identified a clear opportunity, Zylberberg says it is crucial for carriers to play to their strengths in e-health, and exploit the expertise of partners wherever possible.