Healthcare handheld devices sales to reach $8.8 billion in 2010

Sales of handheld device for healthcare use are expected to increase by 7 percent in next five years, according to a recent report published by healthcare research company Kalorama Information.

Global sales of healthcare devices are expected to rise to $8.8 billion from $8.2 billion in 2009.

The report, titled: The Global Handheld Healthcare Device Market, focuses on Patient Monitoring Devices and Administrative Devices.  The authors wrote that stimulus incentives designed to spur hospitals and physicians to use EMR systems are among several factors that will drive growth.

According to InformationWeek the report shows that in 2009, patient monitoring products generated a market worth about $5.3 billion for 2009 with a market share of 64%. This accounts for the largest share of sales in the handheld market, largely due to the range of product availability, number of conditions requiring monitoring, and increasing demand for essential monitoring products in portable sizes, such as ultrasound and ECG. PDAs and Smartphones for healthcare applications were worth about $2.6 billion combined in 2009.

“The ARRA incentives for electronic medical records do not specifically reimburse doctors for devices,” said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. “But they are getting healthcare organizations to think about IT purchases, and they are helping to make the argument for better electronic data entry, something that we think will lead to increased sales for devices used to enter data.”

Other factors which impact the growth of the market are:

•    Growing and aging population, a
•    A shortage of qualified medical professionals
•    Cost restraints
•    Medical error reduction measures

“Healthcare workers need to be mobile, and so PDAs and monitoring devices have long been a good fit,” said Carlson.