Today, a hospital is “perceived” as the facilities that make up its constituent parts, that is, its buildings. A place where people go to receive medical services.

But this is changing. When a patient is being visited/monitored at home through a telemedicine system, where is he? At his place? At the hospital? Tomorrow, a hospital will be defined by the reach of its virtual relationships. It will be thought of as the extended community network by which its services are provided. It will no longer be a place, but a network of relationships.

Many projects that I am seeing in the last months are leveraging this change of perception to enter the healthcare market. If a new start-up aims at bringing the hospital closer to the citizens, it is indeed aligned with this trend (and I like it). Wireless disease management programs, or technologies that enable online physician-patient relationships are two excellent examples of the interesting niches that are going to be filled with hundreds of start-ups in the coming years.