The spread of COVID-19 is reshaping traditional healthcare services and how medical officials interact with patients. Now Twilio, the cloud communications program, is teaming up with ZocDoc, the online medical booking service, to power its new video consultation service.
Susan Collins, the global head of healthcare services at Twilio, told Cheddar Thursday she believes telehealth is here to stay and will continue to accelerate even after the coronavirus pandemic subsides.
"There are certain parts of the country where we are seeing pre-COVID in-person visits close to back to normal at this point, and yet there's an additional 20, 30, and 40 percent of volume which is happening on telehealth," she said.
The service on ZocDoc is open to all medical providers who want to sign up and begin virtual appointments. Twilio is also offering three free months for healthcare customers, educators, and nonprofit organizations that sign up before June 30.
"I think it's a great opportunity, particularly for our underserved population — folks who have maybe difficulties getting to a healthcare facility, perhaps they have childcare issues or they have difficulty taking off from work," she said. "So, having the ability to reach a medical professional from the comfort of your living room is a great convenience."
Even before the pandemic, telehealth was a focus for Twilio according to Collins who said the company was able to get services up-to-speed quickly to meet the increased demand for virtual healthcare appointments.
"We pride ourselves on being able to enable the builders of the world to improve customer engagement," she said. "Obviously, during a pandemic, healthcare is a critical service. We are very pleased to be able to scale up quickly to meet that demand."
The State Department had been in talks with Elon Musk’s Tesla company to buy armored electric vehicles, but the plans have been put on hold by the Trump administration after reports emerged about a potential $400 million purchase. A State Department spokesperson said the electric car company owned by Musk was the only one that expressed interest back in May 2024. The deal with Tesla was only in its planning phases but it was forecast to be the largest contract of the year. It shows how some of his wealth has come and was still expected to come from taxpayers.
At 100 years old, the Goodyear Blimp is an ageless star in the sky. The 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 — flying roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its greatest anniversary tour. Even though remote camera technologies are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
You'll just have to wait for interest rates (and prices) to go down. Plus, this deal's a steel, the big carmaker wedding is off, and bribery is back, baby!
It’s a chicken-and-egg problem: Restaurants are struggling with record-high U.S. egg prices, but their omelets, scrambles and huevos rancheros may be part of the problem. Breakfast is booming at U.S. eateries. First Watch, a restaurant chain that serves breakfast, brunch and lunch, nearly quadrupled its locations over the past decade to 570. Fast-food chains like Starbucks and Wendy's added more egg-filled breakfast items. In normal times, egg producers could meet the demand. But a bird flu outbreak that has forced them to slaughter their flocks is making supplies scarcer and pushing up prices. Some restaurants like Waffle House have added a surcharge to offset their costs.
William Falcon, CEO and Founder of Lightning AI, discusses the ongoing feud between Elon Musk and Sam Altman, and how everyday people can use AI in their lives.
U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum “will not go unanswered,” European Union chief Ursula von der Leyen vowed on Tuesday, adding that they will trigger toug
The Trump administration has ordered the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop nearly all its work, effectively shutting down the agency that was created to protect consumers after the 2008 financial crisis and subprime mortgage-lending scandal. Russell Vought is the newly installed director of the Office of Management and Budget. Vought directed the CFPB in a Saturday night email to stop work on proposed rules, to suspend the effective dates on any rules that were finalized but not yet effective, and to stop investigative work and not begin any new investigations. The agency has been a target of conservatives since President Barack Obama created it following the 2007-2008 financial crisis.
