AT&T now has a doctor in the house. They’re hired Geeta Nayyar, MD and MBA, to bolster their health team. Here is AT&T’s press release on the news.
Dr. Nayyar will join the AT&T ForHealth team, adding her expertise as a physician knowledge about about wellness, health outcomes, and evidence-based medicine. She’s affiliated with the George Washington University med school, and has been a CMO at two companies before arriving at AT&T. A rheumatologist, Dr. Nayyar knows something about managing chronic conditions.
Over the past two years, AT&T has ventured with many organizations to deliver patient-facing applications for self-care, such as the American Association of Diabetes Educators, Vitality GlowCaps, Text4Baby, and MedApps, among others.
In a related news item at the intersection of health/technology, Time Warner Cable has announced its telehealth program in Maine, called Healthcare Solutions. The network will connect with Maine’s Health Information Exchange.
Health Populi’s Hot Points: Health happens where we live, work, play and pray — my latest mantra inspired by an interview given by current U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin, MD to the LA Times in the spring of 2011. Note that I neglected to include the five words, “and in the doctor’s office.”
As a telecomms provider, AT&T already plays a crucial role in underpinning the global health information infrastructure, just by providing a communications platform for moving data, voice and video within and between health care communities. With the company’s carving in a role for a Chief Medical Information Officer, AT&T is showing the marketplace that they’re explicitly committed to the health vertical at the C-level. That’s a sentinel event in my eyes, signaling that connecting health stakeholders is now seen by a Fortune 50 enterprise as a major business opportunity.
Time Warner Cable’s announcement makes a complementary market ripple, bolstering my forecast for health-at-home. This isn’t your grandmother’s home health — this is patient-centered, usable, engaging and connected health that keeps people well where they live, or if they’re unwell or post-acutely caring for themselves at home, staying out of hospital and preventing their readmission in partnership with their providers — whether a hospital, a doctor, or a health coach.
Health-at-home isn’t just ‘at home’ — it’s mobile, wherever the person makes daily micro-decisions that support individual health. AT&T and Time Warner will be part of the growing menu of consumer-facing technology companies that are enabling self-care, and connected care with providers.
Jane Sarasohn-Kahn is a health economist and management consultant that serves clients at the intersection of health and technology. 
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