With the rush to the beach or getting time away after two years of COVID-induced lockdowns, you might have missed the news of Amazon’s most recent acquisition this summer.
On 21 July,
Amazon announced that it had acquired
One Medical, in a
cash deal valued at $3.9 billion.
One Medical is a membership-based primary care practice which provides healthcare to patients through a combination of in-person, digital and virtual care services in locations across the U.S.
The company is using technology to drive innovation in primary healthcare such as by allowing online booking for GP appointments or text messaging with doctors, in addition to 24/7 on demand tele-healthcare. It has also built its own medical records technology from the ground up to help doctors better manage patient relationships.
One Medical was one of the earliest companies in the U.S. to recognise the enormous potential of technology to improve both access to and quality of healthcare.
Amazon’s SVP of Health Services, Neil Lindsay, summed up the opportunity when he noted:
“…. healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention.”
“Booking an appointment, waiting weeks or even months to be seen, taking time off work, driving to a clinic, finding a parking spot, waiting in the waiting room then the exam room for what is too often a rushed few minutes with a doctor, then making another trip to a pharmacy – we see lots of opportunity to both improve the quality of the experience and give people back valuable time in their days”
While the agreement was met with some discussion around the risk of Big Tech and the privacy of patient health information, it equally met with optimistic commentary on the ability of Amazon to bring much-needed efficiencies and improved customer experience to health care, as it has to retail shopping.
The caveat is that the healthcare is different from purchasing new trainers given its nature and the fact that some costs just cannot be squeezed. But its’ certainly true that technology, and the high-quality broadband connectivity upon which it is based, can fundamentally change how healthcare is delivered and how patients experience it.
Primary care is just Amazon’s latest move into health care. The company acquired online pharmacy PillPack in 2018 for over $700 million and launched its own online prescription delivery service Amazon Pharmacy in 2020. There are also rumours that Amazon is considering starting a new digital therapy and counselling platform.
Whether, or not, Amazon’s foray into healthcare is the commoditisation of health and whether that’s a good or bad thing is beside the point. The truth is that as Neil Lindsay put it “
healthcare is high on the list of experiences that need reinvention.”
Technology across all aspects of our lives has put power back in the hands of people, broken down unnatural and societal barriers to equality of access in areas as diverse as education, travel or share trading.
Yet healthcare, particularly patient experience of accessing care, remains one of the few sectors where the impact of connectivity and digital technologies doesn’t appear to have made as much cut through.
While most activities can be booked online such as a haircut or an NCT for a car, why not an appointment with a GP? Equally, in Ireland’s hospital system there is no single digital health record for each patient to provide a catch-all record of a patient’s lifelong medical history. Instead, 85% of all hospital records remain paper-based and hospitals can’t access GP data and vice versa.
85% of all hospital records are still paper based.
Accelerated changed and faster digital uptake in healthcare is achievable. The pandemic showed us what’s possible, albeit in response to an emergency situation.
The rollout of the Covid-19 vaccination programme was predominantly over a digital platform. The move to e-prescriptions also during the pandemic – stalled for years prior to that - rapidly simplified and enhanced prescription practices overnight.
Patients, too, managed to successfully navigate both processes.
The digital win’s during COVID in Irish healthcare can continue. With groups like the Irish Digital Health Leadership Group, a collective of health, IT and patient experts, looking to accelerate the timelines for delivery.
In Ireland we have a wealth of health tech companies, many who are world leaders in their field whose expertise can be tapped into to develop local solutions for Irish patients.
Examples include,
SilverCloudHealth, which has delivered online mental health programmes to over a million individuals and 500 organisations globally, including in Ireland.
LetsGetChecked is another Irish-grown company making waves in healthcare internationally. The company offers more than 30 home diagnostic tests in the categories of sexual health, women’s health, men’s health, wellness and coronavirus, with more than seven million tests delivered worldwide to date. In addition, in the U.S. its’ users can order medication online.
Health Beacon, a patient medication management system, is just another further example of an Irish company growing rapidly overseas. Added to these is the strong presence of global med-tech and pharma FDA companies dotted across Ireland, all whose expertise could be brought to bear.
The Government has set a target of all homes and businesses having access to a Gigabit network by 2028. Through the work of commercial broadband network operators such as
SIRO or
National Broadband Ireland people in every corner of Ireland will have reliable and secure connectivity.
At a time in Ireland when wait times for accessing health services can be long, reinventing healthcare delivery and expanding investment in digital health services could offer a solution to ensure faster access to care for many.
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SIRO, a joint venture between ESB and Vodafone, is currently rolling out a 100% fibre broadband network across 154 towns and cities across Ireland, with services currently available to 450,000+ premises and reaching 770,000 premises over the next four years.
In October 2021, SIRO launched 2 Gigabit speeds for the residential market. Today’s announcement of 10 Gigabits is initially focused on the enterprise market. The latter have a need to progressively scale up their bandwidth from 2 Gigabits up to 10 Gigabits in the short to medium term.
The upgrade to 10 Gigabits reflects SIRO’s ambition to continuously bring innovation to the Irish broadband market. SIRO is Ireland’s sole open-access wholesale-only broadband operator and was first to introduce 1 Gigabit broadband to Irish homes. It is now stretching its offering further with speeds of 2 Gigabits for residential and up to 10 Gigabits for enterprise customers, respectively.
The benefits of multi-gigabit speeds include:
Ensure fastest speeds: Symmetrical speeds up to ten times faster than the best standard currently available of up to 1 Gigabit. A 10 Gigabit connection can transfer 1 Gigabit of data in 0.8 seconds or upload a file of 20 Gigabits in under 20 seconds.
Provide scalable connectivity: A future-proofed connection to support the increasing number of connected devices used by businesses.
Enhance cyber protection: Enhanced data and network protection by facilitating network management systems which reduce cybersecurity risks.
Support new technologies: The bandwidth to integrate emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence, virtual reality, 3D technology or voice recognition tools.
Commenting on the announcement, SIRO CEO, John Keaney, said:
“For SIRO, completing our transition to a 10 Gigabit-enabled network is about ensuring we continue to lead the market in terms of delivering on Ireland’s future broadband needs for the decades ahead.
“All aspects of business processes and operations are increasingly digitised. Reliable and future proofed connectivity is the foundation upon which they all rest.
“This upgrade gives enterprises the opportunity to plan and scale up their bandwidth requirements as their data demands and business requirements grow.
Rather than wait for the broadband infrastructure to catch up, businesses can now have the certainty that they can access higher speeds and capacity as and when they need it,” added Mr. Keaney.
To find out if you can avail of 10 Gigabit today, check your Eircode today!
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SIRO is a joint venture company between ESB and Vodafone, founded in 2015. SIRO’s state-of-the-art fibre broadband network is built on the ESB electricity infrastructure, trusted for its reliability and resilience. Overall, the company is investing more than €1 billion in delivering high speed, future proofed broadband across Ireland.
Commenting on SIRO’s launch in 
Integrated Services Digital Network (ISDN) first began to be used globally in the 1980s. It is effectively a set of communication standards for simultaneous digital transmission of voice, video, data and other network services over the digitalised circuits of the public telephone network. However globally, even by the end of the 1980s, the technology was already being overtaken by new network systems with much faster speeds.
However, not so the case in Ireland. Here, ISDN was introduced and billed as a step change in the digitalisation of the telephone network by Telecom Eireann in 1994, with the promise of multiple direct dial numbers (DDIs) over a single shared bearer. Originally, its capability to communicate video was also a key selling feature, with one of the original users of ISDN in Ireland being Gairmscoil Éinne on Inis Mór where pupils received their German lessons from a teacher on the mainland.
From 2017 onwards the changes in Enterprise Networks and Solutions Architecture have impacted heavily on the use of ISDN access paths.
Those key changes include:
SIRO’s Employee Experience Manager and Executive Assistant to the CEO (Chief Executive Officer), Gillian Quigley, explores digital wellbeing apps, mental health, and the importance of staying connected.
They say these days that there’s an app for everything. An app to order food or clothes, to stream your favourite shows, and even to adjust the temperature within your home. But what about an app to improve your mental health? General wellbeing and morale over the course of the past three years has naturally dipped because of strict restrictions, lockdowns and varying levels of anxiety within society. People yearned for diverse ways to connect when the effects of loneliness in Ireland was higher than ever before. 
SIRO, like other companies provide apps to augment our support resources. However, you may choose to research, evaluate and use your own preferred option. There are many popular and affordable apps that don’t require intervention from your workplace. Some of these apps include , 
In acknowledging that digital wellbeing apps are a natural progression for health services, with more services coming online each day, it’s important to ensure that your home or business is prepared for this evolution. SIRO’s fibre to the premises broadband is a ‘one size fits all’ type of connectivity that’s resilient enough to handle any video calls, heavy data uploads without a break in signal, when using cloud-based health platforms.
The pandemic has shown us that connectivity matters now, more than ever before. Staying connected with your friends, family and your own self is vital to having a positive, healthy state of mind.
If you or someone you know are experiencing mental health issues, please contact: 
The hospitality industry is a vital element of the Irish economy, with the 
Multi-gigabit speeds can provide:
Commenting on the launch of its 10 Gigabit-enabled network for Galway City, SIRO CEO John Keaney stated: “Galway has long been a city which embraces technology, quickly leveraging innovation to drive economic growth and job creation. This has positioned Galway to successfully attract significant foreign direct investment and for its start-up businesses to compete globally. SIRO also has innovation in its DNA. As Ireland’s first 100% fibre network, operating as a broadband wholesaler driving greater competition and choice, moving up a gear to roll-out multi-gigabit speeds up to 10 Gigabit for enterprise, just makes sense. Higher speeds, increased bandwidth and much lower latency meets a growing business demand. More importantly, for us it’s about developing and deploying world-class connectivity infrastructure to support enterprise needs for years to come.
“With speeds of up to 10 Gigabits, Galway enterprise level companies can develop and use products and services of the future, today. Access to this level of bandwidth will also give Galway city a unique competitive advantage in a global marketplace,” added Mr. Keaney.
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Enterprise Ireland is the State Agency responsible for supporting exporting Irish-owned companies. We support start-ups from initial ideation stage in many settings, whether entrepreneurship training, third level institutions, start-up hubs or others. We are also an investor in many Irish funds offering seed and venture capital to companies and are a large direct equity investor in our own right.
Our offer for established companies includes direct financial support and advice for expansion, investment, productivity improvement and innovation. We also provide advice and guidance for companies through dedicated Development Advisors on our team. Enterprise Ireland has 40 offices all around the world focused on market access and support for companies to grow and expand internationally
