Healthcare Technology Featured Article

November 14, 2014

Xerox Invests in HealthSpot to Drive Kiosk-Based Telehealth Services


Healthcare has always been regarded as one of those important things that people really need, yet at the same time, often can't get access to. While expense is definitely one of the major drivers of keeping people off of healthcare, there are others, and one of the biggest is all a matter of availability in an area. Xerox, meanwhile, recently put a major investment in HealthSpot Inc. in a bid to help narrow the gap between healthcare services people need and the healthcare services that are actually available in an area with one simple expedient: telehealth.

The HealthSpot platform combines a proprietary, cloud-based software platform with a kiosk measuring 40 square feet. The average visit to a HealthSpot system takes about 15 minutes, and once run through the system, users get access to a variety of doctors in a variety of specialties, as well as access to prescriptions should it be necessary to provide such a service. With Xerox's investment thrown into the mix, HealthSpot will be able to step up the rollouts of such kiosks nationwide, with plans to put HealthSpot kiosks in pharmacies, care centers, emergency departments and even at large-scale businesses with large numbers of employees.

Xerox's chief operating officer of commercial healthcare, Connie Harvey, explains the motivation behind putting investment into HealthSpot by saying “HealthSpot is at the center of healthcare's shift to a patient-centered model of care, and our investment in the company demonstrates Xerox's commitment to transforming traditional healthcare into a high-value delivery system for patients, providers and payers. By combining the HealthSpot platform with our powerful brand and more than 40 years of healthcare experience, we're helping patients unlock affordable access to care while positioning Xerox to play a significant role in the future of healthcare.”

But it's not going to be just cash that Xerox is pumping into HealthSpot; some of Xerox's expertise will also be called on to make HealthSpot even better for the combination. Xerox is set to bring in its business process services to HealthSpot's software platform to augment the system with improved cloud hosting and system integration, as well as improvements to the claims process. Xerox will also bring in information technology (IT) infrastructure in a bid to add to appointment booking and as an interface mechanism for electronic health records (EHRs).

This is a case of a good thing being made even better by the addition of another good thing, like ice cream being placed between a pair of cookies to make a sandwich. Xerox not only has experience in healthcare but also in IT in general. Bringing this kind of experience to a healthcare platform that's heavily depending on IT like HealthSpot essentially allows Xerox to put most of its skills to work in a platform that's already seeing at least some level of success, and that combination of factors should work well together for this pair. Sometimes healthcare access can be a big problem, particularly in remote locations, and a telehealth initiative like this one should go a long way toward fixing at least some of that problem.

It will be exciting to see where HealthSpot and Xerox end up as a result of this arrangement, and it's an arrangement that will likely do well for all concerned. Getting more services to the underserved is usually a good market move, and here, HealthSpot and Xerox seem to have capitalized on an underserved market very nicely.




Edited by Maurice Nagle
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