Armed with a new investment by a Chinese IT giant and wide variety of innovative solutions, Israeli medical equipment provider Aerotel Medical Systems is ready to utilize its vest experience and enter the fast growing Asian telemedicine market.
Aerotel, which provides modular, mobile and home based telemedicine and telecare solutions, has recently attracted an investment from China's Neusoft Corporation.
The move is part of Aerotel's overall strategy of expanding its activity in Asia in general and in the Chinese lucrative market in particular. A recent report by Espicom Business Intelligence estimates that the Chinese medical device market grows at an annual rate of some 13 percent, turning it into one of the fastest growing markets in the world.
The analysts noted that prospects for medical devices spending are huge as the Chinese government has committed heavily in the construction of thousands of hospitals, healthcare centers, clinics. This will inevitably lead to spending on medical devices at an unprecedented rate in a relatively short space of time.
Aerotel intends to utilize Neusoft's position as a local market leader in the fields of medical equipment, medical IT solutions and healthcare services. The company will offer Asian populations cost-effective, high-quality and user-friendly medical diagnostic systems and devices for home care, eHealth and telemedicine, as well as telecare and personal safety.
With a client base of over 50 countries around the globe and more than a decade of rich experience, Aerotel is well positioned to successfully enter the Asian market. Judging by its previous practice, the company has all it takes to smoothly penetrate large markets.
So for example, Aerotel is currently providing Ambulance staffs in Brazil with devices to monitor people injured in car accidents or and other emergency situations. By using Aerotel's solution, paramedics can record ECG trace and transmit it within minutes to a remote medical centre using their mobile phones. The service provides significant benefits, including critical time savings, enhanced level of emergency treatment, expert guidance to the ambulance staff and increased chances for patient recovery form critical situations.
In the United States, Aerotel provides remote monitoring services of health problems for congestive heart failure patients. The technology, which allows heart patients take readings like their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics, saves money and makes users life much easier.
In Europe, Aerotel's GeoSKeeper personal safety and location system has won great popularity. The mobile service enables the accurate location of seniors, children and lone workers. By wearing the light-weight device on their wrist the users' accurate location can be sent to family and caregivers in real time.
A report published last year by research company, Global Industry Analysts, predicts that the global market for ECG telemetry devices will reach some $1.1 billion by 2015.
The analysts, which defined Aerotel as one of the major players in this field, noted that Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing market as it is expected to grow by an annual rate of more than 5 percent over the next four years.
This is attributed to aging population and growing cases of heart disease or cardiovascular diseases. In addition, rising expenditure and scarcity of alternative home care resources and services are expected to add to growing demand for home telemetry monitoring devices.
Aerotel, which recently launched its services in New Zealand and Australia, is now aiming at the growing Chinese market, allowing it to establish a strong foothold in the Asia-Pacific market.
The global telehealth market is expected to continue growing at a command annual growth rate (CAGR) of 43.4 percent to $990 million by 2015, according to a report by medical research company InMedica.
InMedica analysts predict that the market will continue to rise to over $1 billion in 2016 and has the potential to reach $6 billion by 2020.
The authors said that increasing demand for healthcare, associated with ever increasing disease prevalence and an ageing population creates a significant challenge for the delivery of care. The number of people with chronic condition is forecast to increase dramatically by 10%-20% over the next ten years. Moreover, the aging demographic will lead to a significant increase in disease co-morbidities in the population that is over-65.
Telehealth, also known as Telemedicine, means using information and communications technologies for the delivery of healthcare services. Telehealth reduces the unnecessary hospitalizations and reduces waiting lists for medical treatment with a significant saving factor on economic resources. This technology gives patients the ability to monitor the specific parameters of their conditions and then have the information sent directly to their physicians for management of their disease process via telephone, cellular or the Internet.
Telehealth has become a rapidly evolving field, thanks to recent technological breakthroughs, such as miniaturized sensors and advancements in telecommunications means that allow an almost permanent contact in case of need. Telehealth can offer cost-effective remote monitoring solutions that can seamlessly operate from anywhere at anytime.
The report illustrates that home-monitoring is becoming increasingly relevant in the treatment of chronic diseases. Home-use medical devices in Teleheatlh services, such as blood glucose meters, pulse oximeters, weight scales and peak flow meters are being deployed to monitor four main diseases – congestive heart failure (CHF), chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), diabetes and hypertension.
"The main driving force behind the sharp growth of the Telehealth market are the new solutions for monitoring chronic diseases answering the growing need for such solutions that will hold down healthcare costs," said Ofer Atzmon, Vice President for Business Development and Marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems. "From our experience the strongest demand is for hypertension (monitoring of blood pressure) solutions, followed by diabetes (monitoring of glucose and blood pressure), CHF (monitoring of blood pressure and weight) and COPD (monitoring of SpO2 and spirometry values)."
“Many public healthcare systems now have targets to reduce both the number of hospital visits and the length of stay in hospital,” said Diane Wilkinson, Research Manager at InMedica. “This has led to a growing trend for healthcare to be managed outside the traditional hospital environment, and as a result, there is a growing trend for patients to be monitored in their home environment using telehealth technologies once their treatment is complete.”
She noted that the US is the most established market for telehealth by far. So for example, the Veteran’s Health Administration’s extensive home Telehealth service aims to provide some 92,000 patients with Telehealth services by next year. Wilkinson added that there has also been some large-scale trial activity in Europe, mainly in the UK.
