Perspective
The next era of care is continuous
Why the most important healthcare experience is no longer a visit, but the connected days between visits.
CAN and AT&T expand connected mobility
In December 2023, CAN and AT&T announced a collaboration supporting cellular connectivity for CAN Go, helping the product stay connected without depending on a separate phone for its core communication experience.
Restored from CAN’s original December 7, 2023 partnership announcement.
Connectivity that follows the person
A mobile device moves between homes, neighborhoods, cities, and care settings. The official announcement described CAN Go as using AT&T cellular connectivity so its communication features could operate without being tethered to a smartphone.
That architecture can reduce one dependency for the user, but it does not eliminate dependencies. Service still varies with coverage, activation, battery state, device condition, and support. Cellular access creates a path for communication; it does not guarantee that every message or call will succeed.
Why infrastructure is part of the experience
When technology is used for communication, the network is part of the user experience. Coverage, provisioning, latency, battery consumption, support, and device management influence whether the service is available when someone expects it.
Dependability must therefore be measured as an end-to-end property rather than inferred from the presence of a cellular module. Useful operating metrics include activation success, connection availability, call completion, message delivery, support resolution time, and performance under weak coverage.
From a connected cane to connected care
CAN Go illustrated how a familiar physical object could participate in a wider communication system. Extending that idea into healthcare requires additional layers the partnership announcement did not claim: consent, identity, clinical interpretation, workflow ownership, escalation, and evidence of outcomes.
Connectivity is therefore necessary infrastructure, not connected care by itself. The path from a connected product to a care operating system begins when a signal gains trustworthy context and an accountable response—not merely when it reaches the cloud.