The number of home monitoring systems with integrated communication capabilities is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18 percent until 2016, according to a report published by Berg Insight.
The report, titled 'mHealth and Home Monitoring' forecasts, that the number of patients worldwide using remote monitoring solutions will more than double to 4.9 million by the end of 2016, compared to 2.2 million today.
"The adoption of out-of-hospital wireless monitoring in healthcare is driven by a wide range of incentives, related to everything from demographics and technology development to new advancements in medical treatment," said Lars Kurkinen and Johan Fagerberg, analysts at Berg Insight. "There are, however, a number of barriers, including resistance to change among healthcare organizations and clinicians, misaligned incentive structures and the financing of wireless solutions by what is at large an underfunded healthcare sector."
Berg analysts said that applying information and communication technologies in the healthcare industry can lead to decreased costs, more efficient care delivery and improved sustainability of the healthcare system.
The report, which names Aerotel Medical Systems as one of the leading providers of mHealth solutions, shows that the number of devices that have integrated cellular connectivity rose to 570,000 from only 420,000 in 2010. The number is expected to surge at a CAGR of 34.6% to 2.47 million in 2016.
Several companies have developed integrated solutions for monitoring multiple chronic diseases and other conditions. The six leading providers of integrated telehealth systems include the major technology and electronics companies Bosch, Honeywell, Philips and Bayer, as well as the small specialist telehealth companies Cardiocom, and Numera.
The global market for home health remote monitoring of welfare diseases was valued in 2010 at some €7.6 billion ($10 billion) and is growing about 9 percent annually. The diabetes monitoring segment is by far the largest segment, worth about €6.3 billion ($8.2 billion). According to a report published by research firm Berg Insight.
The analyst firm said that the most common chronic diseases that are monitored today include diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia, sleep apnea, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
These conditions cause substantial costs and reduce both life expectancy and quality of life. Berg said that more than 200 million people in the European Union (EU) and the United States (US) suffer from one or several chronic diseases where home monitoring can become a treatment option.
At the end of 2010, an estimated 1 million patients used a home monitoring service based on equipment with integrated connectivity. The figure does not include patients that use monitoring devices connected to a PC or mobile phone; it only includes systems that rely on monitors with integrated connectivity or systems that use monitoring hubs with integrated cellular or fixed-line modems.
“Progress is being made in the adoption of wireless technology among manufacturers of medical monitoring equipment, but there is still a long way to go before remote monitoring becomes a standard practice in the healthcare sector,” said André Malm, Senior Analyst at Berg Insight. "Consumer-oriented health and wellness monitoring will drive the mHealth segment in the near term."
The report estimated that a growing number of wellness and medical monitors will be connected to mobile devices via Bluetooth and other short-range technologies. And that in the future smartphones are likely to be the primary monitoring device for many patients.
"More and more health and wellness apps are also being released for smartphones, ranging from BMI calculators, diet guides and sport trackers to medical reference apps," Malm said.
The usage of mobile devices equipped with Internet and social media capabilities presents real opportunity to enhance chronic disease prevention and management, according to a report published by Science Journal.
The authors, Deborah Estrin and Ida Sim note that chronic diseases including diabetes, asthma, and obesity account for 46% of global disease burden.
They call for a public-private partnership to define and instantiate open mHealth architecture in order to support medical discovery and evidence based practice.
The main argument is that the development and treatment of chronic diseases usually takes place outside of traditional clinical settings. mHealth allows patients to collect and share relevant data with their medical staff at any given time allowing more rapid convergence to optimal treatment.
The report concludes that standardized interfaces and shared components are critical for realizing the full potential of mobile health care delivery and research.
"Government, commercial, and nongovernmental entities involved in health IT and innovation should cooperate to define and instantiate architecture, governance, and business models and to steer initial mHealth investments into open architecture," Estrin and Sim wrote.
"open mHealth architecture may encourage innovation by easing application development. Shared standards and reusable components may enable rapid authoring, integration, and evaluation of personal data capture for clinical care and research. Hospitals, accountable care organizations and public health practitioners could mix and match from a rich, flexible set of data acquisition and analysis components".
