Telemedicina – Onde estamos e para onde vamos… Capítulo 2: Perspectivas sobre Telemedicina e e-Saúde E-Health and Telemedicine: Crossing the Chasm and Entering the Tornado 19 Capítulo 2: Perspectivas sobre Telemedicina e e-Saúde E-Health and Telemedicine: Crossing the Chasm and Entering the Tornado Benedict Stanberry Managing Director Avienda E: ben.stanberry@avienda.co.uk W: www.avienda.co.uk Keywords: e-health, telemedicine, market, strategy. Abstract The e-health and telemedicine industries are still immature and have yet to fully exploit the high- volume opportunities offered by the mainstream healthcare market-place. The lessons learnt by the high tech industry as a whole over the last 30 years have led to acceptance of the Technology Adoption Life Cycle as a model for high tech marketing, suitably modified to reflect the difficulties of introducing discontinuous innovations such as e-health or telemedicine applications into a highly pragmatic market such as healthcare. This model uses Moore’s metaphor of the “chasm” to describe the demographic, attitudinal, sociological and psychological differences between the early and mainstream markets for health e-health and telemedicine products. It proposes that a thorough understanding of these dissimilarities, combined with a willingness to focus on discrete market niches, is a prerequisite for successfully crossing the chasm from the early to mainstream markets. Introduction In February 2000 Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu published a market analysis entitled The Emerging European Health E-health Industry on assignment from the European Commission’s Directorate- General for the Information Society[ 1 ]. Their analysis painted a depressing picture of a still [ 1 ] Deloitte and Touche. The Emerging European Health Telehealth Industry: Market Analysis of the Health Information Society Technology based Industry Sector. Brussels: Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, February 2000.