As the largest wireless carrier in the U.S. today, Verizon is looking for myriad ways to leverage it’s expansive network to exert a greater impact across a wider array of industries.

In recent years, healthcare has become increasingly more important to Verizon and the reason why is patently obvious.

“When you think of Verizon, you think of our wireless network. But we have a $6 billion health care practice and a chief medical officer,” says Verizon managing principal of connected health care solutions Nancy Green. “We are moving and enabling the business of health care so others can innovate. We have experts on compliance and security, and startups can use the size and scope and scale of Verizon to make a difference.”

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Cognizant of patient concerns related to their privacy and the security of their health and personal information, Verizon is forging ahead and into the beta testing phase of a new service designed to qualm some of these worries.

The service in question will enable doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals to quickly and efficiently exchange medical information via highly secure electronic means.

Speaking at HIMSS 2013 in New Orleans this week, Verizon Chief Medical Officer Peter Tippett said the progress of the forthcoming offering – called “Secure Universal Message Services” – has been impressive.

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Verizon and AT&T – the two largest mobile operators in the Unites States, respectively – have announced new appointments to their individual boards.

And both appointments are veritable tips of the hat to health and the growing importance of technology’s fusion with healthcare, particularly in the mobile realm.

It’s a trend that MHW observed with crystal clarity at CES 2013 last month.

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You’ve been diligent about washing your hands and avoiding crowds (not to mention that guy in the cubicle across from you who keeps hacking and sneezing).

But somehow you still end up with the flu. How did it happen?

There’s an excellent chance that your mobile phone may have spread the virus to you. Flu germs can survive on the surfaces of a wide variety of materials. So while we sanitize our hands on a regular basis, it turns out we should probably also be sanitizing our mobile phones and tablets.

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It was announced during this week’s HIMSS conference that Verizon, Motorola and BoxTone are teaming up to develop secure solutions for Android-based devices and applications with the aim of making the platform suitable for health IT implementation.

The jointly created offering leverages BoxTone’s automated “Enterprise Mobility Management” (EMM) software platform on select Motorola devices,such as the DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX smartphones, as well as DROID XYBOARD 10.1 and 8.2 tablets, all of which leveraging Verizon’s 4G LTE network.  As such, healthcare organizations can now “reliably deploy Android-based mobile devices and apps that are designed to help them meet strict compliance requirements, including privacy measures outlined in the Health Information Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA).”

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MMRGlobal, the company behind MyMedicalRecords.com, announced today that it plans to debut new smartphone and tablet applications at the 2012 HIMSS conference in Las Vegas February 20-24.

The new apps being showcased are its MyMedicalRecords Personal Health Record (PHR) and Emergency View Portal applications, which both work across smartphones and tablets running Android.  Last week we covered the launch of the MyMedicalRecords prepaid PHR card that was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show, which features what the company calls a “Lifeline telephone number.”   In the case of the prepaid PHR service, these Lifeline numbers are used to allow one’s physicians to send in health records and other information which are then centralized in a single PHR.

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It’s been announced that Sprint is joining the ranks of Verizon, Qualcomm and others by introducing a new gateway/hub solution to facilitate remote patient monitoring.

For its launch, Sprint is teaming with home monitoring company IDEAL LIFE, who will provide a series of at-home remote monitors for blood pressure, weight, glucose readings, mobility and other vitals.  The integrated gateway device will collect data from the monitors wirelessly and aggregate it to the IDEAL LIFE’s cloud-based platform, where it can be accessed by caregivers and physicians.  The combined system also sends alerts to caregivers, physicians and others when readings are out of normal range.

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