Most of us think of Verizon (VZ 0.90%) in terms of its telecom business, but this global giant also has a large health care branch, including a Chief Medical Officer.
Verizon had a large presence at the recent mHealth Summit near Washington, D.C. – a conference which sits squarely at the intersection of mobile technology and health care. The Fool’s Max Macaluso and Rex Moore attended the fifth annual Summit to learn where mobile health is today, and what lies ahead. While there, they chatted with Nancy Green, the Managing Principal of Verizon’s Healthcare Practice, to learn more about the company’s multi-billion dollar health segment.
A full transcript follows the video.
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Max Macaluso: I think a lot of our readers are familiar with Verizon as a telecom company. I think most of them don’t know that Verizon actually has a pretty big health care business; so can you tell us a little bit about what you do?
Nancy Green: Yes. Verizon’s practice is actually pretty large, and it covers what we call the “whole ecosystem.” In health care, that means health care providers directly, payers, the pharma space, the biochecmical/biotech device manufacturers; so, across the board.
We have experts in all of those areas, that help Verizon with some strategy and solution development so that we can make sure that our solutions fit for what health care is doing. It’s a large practice. It covers across all the Verizon companies, and includes our network services, our wireless services. It includes software security services... that kind of stuff.
Macaluso: How big is the practice right now?
Green: It’s a multi-billion dollar practice. It’s led by our Chief Medical Officer, Dr. Peter Tippett, who leads strategy and innovations, and runs the incubator within Verizon.
Macaluso: I think it’s surprising to a lot of people that Verizon has a Chief Medical Officer.
Green: Yes.
Macaluso: How long has that position been open and, long term, what’s the vision for this practice?
Green: I came on about four-and-a-half years ago -- I have about 19 years in health care background, so they hired from the health care industry to do that -- and I think Dr. Tippett came on right about that time.
The strategies have evolved since about four-and-a-half years ago, to really be the platform for health care, to interexchange information, and to accelerate innovation. That’s really where we try to focus, is accelerating the innovation for our customers.
Macaluso: Who are your customers right now?
Green: Those are large payers; the health care payers, the insurance companies -- that’s what we call a “payer” -- so large, integrated delivery networks, which are hospital systems that have an insurance arm. I’m trying to make this so everyone can understand it; it can get very confusing! Payers, providers, and pharma, so the large pharmacy -- actually, across the globe on the pharmacy side.
