Aerotel's mHealth solutions draw interest at MWC 2012

Aerotel Medical System's mobile health (mHealth) and telemedicine solutions draw much interest at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012, held earlier this month in Barcelona, Spain.

"Visitors showed much interest in our mHealth products," said Ofer Atzmon, Aerotel's VP Business Development and Marketing. "Senior executives from telecom companies, consultancy companies and healthcare providers came to meet Aerotel's management at our booth at the Israeli National Pavilion."

Aerotel booth at MWC 2012

Special interest was paid to Aerotel's innovative location-based personal alert system, GeoSkeeper, which recently received the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Certification as well as Industry Canada (IC) certification.

Research indicates that the cost of managing chronic diseases is the largest portion of health care expenditures in developed countries. With rising aging populations, governments and healthcare providers are constantly looking for ways to lower expanses. Telemedicine solutions, such as those provided by Aerotel, could generate significant cost savings.

A recent report published by the GSMA and accounting firm PwC indicates that the worldwide mHealth revenue is expected to reach about $23 billion by 2017.

Source: GSMA and PwC report

The largest markets for mobile health services are expected to be Europe and Asia-Pacific (30 percent market share each), North America (28%), Latin America (7%) and Africa (5%)

Among the various categories, monitoring services, such as Aerotel's Connect-Cell, will account for the largest share (65%), corresponding to about US$ 15 billion in 2017.

Due to the growing interest in mHealth in the telecom sector, Aerotel will participate this year for the first time at the CTIA Wireless show in the US, and many high-level meetings with service providers are already scheduled.

mHealth can reduce global maternal and perinatal mortality by 30%

Wide adoption of mobile health (mHealth) solutions worldwide can lead to a decrease of 30 percent in the number of maternal and perinatal mortality, according to a new study conducted by The Boston Consulting Group and Telenor Group.

Source: Telenor

The study, entitled "Socio-Economic Impact of mHealth", indicates also that mHealth solutions for elderly care can reduce costs by some 25% and that expenditures related to data collection can be reduced by 24%.

The authors said that mHealth is expected to benefit from the explosive growth in global mobile phone penetration. They added that the necessary infrastructure already exists as the number of mobile subscriptions is expected to reach 7.4 billion by 2015.

According to the study, the existing mHealth technology richness and network capacity is sufficient, both on simple feature phones and on smartphones.

“The technological development and successful pilots around the world demonstrate that the time for mHealth has come," said Knut Haanæs, Global Leader, Sustainability Practice, The Boston Consulting Group. "Accelerating adoption will require orchestrating multiple stakeholders, including the alignment of incentives for healthcare professionals to adopt mHealth.”

The researchers concluded that mobile health technology can offer different countries sizeable benefits, lead to economic growth and promise a better life for individuals. They noted that currently, healthcare systems are overburdened, costly and incapable of meeting the needs of a growing population.

Aerotel's GeoSkeeper wins North American approvals

Aerotel Medical Systems has received the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Certification as well as Industry Canada (IC) certification for its innovative location-based personal alert system, GeoSkeeper.

The approvals pave the way for Aerotel to start offering the GeoSkeeper system in the lucrative North American markets of the USA and Canada. GeoSkeeper is already being sold in other markets around the world, including Israel, Europe, Asia-Pacific and South America.

"GeoSkeeper offers a real solution to the needs of the North American medical alert and personal safety sectors," said David Rubin, Aerotel Medical Systems President & CEO. "Adding GeoSkeeper to Aerotel's family of products sold in this market will enable Aerotel to further expand its presence in the North American market for the benefit of both patients and healthcare providers."

Aerotel has started negotiations with several security and medical alert service providers in North America in order to start offering the GeoSkeeper™ to the growing market of medical alert and personal security in the near future.

Aerotel will showcase its mobile health (mHealth) and other telemedicine solutions at the Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2012, Barcelona, Spain, at Hall 2, booth 2C12 (Israel National Pavilion).

The GeoSkeeper personal safety and location system is specifically designed to provide peace of mind for elderly, chronically ill, children or lone workers, as well as their relatives and caregivers.

Aerotel has been active in the USA and Canada for more than a decade offering a wide variety of telemedicine solutions, including its personal handheld electrocardiogram (ECG) systems, homecare data hubs, and telemedicine remote monitoring software solutions. 

Aerotel's telemedicine solutions are in use by various remote monitoring service providers, taking care of chronically ill patients belonging to various health care organizations.

Medical app downloads to reach 142 million in 2016

Mobile healthcare and medical applications downloads will rise to 142 million in 2016 from an expected 44 million in 2012, according to a report on the mHealth market issued by research company Juniper Research.

Juniper analysts said they expect the number of patients monitored by mobile networks to rise to some 3 million by 2016, with the majority of them in the United States. The rise will be fueled by the market for healthcare peripherals and increased smartphone processing power.

"Remote patient monitoring will step in to reduce the cost burden of unhealthy lifestyles and aging populations," said Anthony Cox Associate Analyst at Juniper.



The report indicates that monitoring of cardiac outpatients is currently very dominant in the remote patient monitoring market as insurance companies try to lower their expanses. This is expected to change in the future, with the management of diabetes, COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disorder) and other chronic diseases leading the market.

Juniper added that developing markets continue to benefit from SMS-based education programmes and stand to benefit in medium term from app-based healthcare services such as mobile ultrasound that are now being developed.

EHR (electronic health records), which have not gained significant traction, will become in the future an important component of mHealth offerings.

Report: mHealth app market to reach $392 million in 2015

The New Year brings with it new forecasts concerning the future of the mobile application (mHealth) market. While both two reports reflect the same growth trend, the strength of the change varies substantially. The difference between the two researches can stem from using different methodologies, but also from the difficulties arising from trying to predict market trends for new technologies that integrate elements from different industries.

Earnings of the mHealth app market are expected to rise to $392 million from $230 million in 2010, according to a report published by research company Frost & Sullivan.

"From 2008 to 2010 mHealth consistently outpaced forecast growth and revenue," said Frost & Sullivan Senior Industry Analyst Zachary Bujnoch. "mHealth apps will continue on a steep growth curve as increasingly sophisticated mobile technologies and relationship-management tools disrupt the market."

Bujnoch added that today, we are seeing the tip of the iceberg in the U.S. mHealth market's potential as mobile apps are the single-biggest digital channel since the '90s and the Web.

Meanwhile, a separate report published by research2guidance estimates that the mHealth apps market was worth some $718 million in 2011.

The report, entitled "Mobile Health Market Report 2011-2016" claims that the smartphone application market for mobile healthcare is still in an embryonic state despite its huge potential. The authors noted, however, that during the course of 2011 the mHealth market grow very fast following the increase in the usage of smartphones and the doubling of the number of mHealth applications.

"A majority of the big healthcare companies have discovered mHealth applications as an innovative way to promote and deliver healthcare services and products," research2guidance analysts noted. "A testament to this is that a number of these large players published mHealth apps in 2011 that go far beyond a simple allergy tracker or pill reminder, e.g. Sanofi Aventis' sensor-based iBGStar Diabetis monitoring app."

Aerotel to launch GeoSKeeper in North America

Aerotel Medical Systems will launch the GeoSKeeper personal safety and location system in North America after it received the regulatory clearance for this market.

GeoSKeeper mHealth Device

In Western Europe and Eastern Europe, the GeoSKeeper has been growing in popularity. The mobile based 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.

GeoSkeeper offers a new level of safety beyond existing PERS (Personal Emergency Response System) and traditional social alarm systems. The GeoSkeeper has recently received the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Certification, paving the way for further strengthening o Aerotel’s position in the lucrative U.S. market.

Overall, the year 2011 was a great year for Aerotel Medical Systems expending activities all over the globe. Aerotel has expanded its offerings in North America and in Europe and continues to support service providers offering remote monitoring services of health problems for patients suffering from chronic conditions such as congestive heart failure (CHF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

Aerotel technology, which allows home-bound patients to take readings such as their weight, blood pressure and other key metrics, saves money and makes users’ life much easier.

With a client base of more than 50 countries around the globe and more than a decade of rich experience, Aerotel is well positioned to successfully enter new, mature and emerging markets in 2012.

Investing in automated monitoring systems reduces re-hospitalization rates

The usage of home monitoring systems led to a 44 percent decline in 30-day hospital readmission rates, according to a study published by Medical Care Journal.

The research focused on the Geisinger Monitoring Program (GMP) interactive voice response protocol, which is a post-hospital discharge telemonitoring system, used as an adjunct to existing case management in a primary care Medicare population. The main objective of GMP is to reduce emergency department visits and hospital re-admissions.

The authors said, that while automated home monitoring systems have been used to coordinate care to improve patient outcomes and reduce re-hospitalizations, there is only very little formal study of efficacy.

"Investing in automated monitoring systems may reduce hospital re-admission rates among primary care case-managed patients," the authors concluded. "Evidence from this quasi-experimental study demonstrates that the combination of telemonitoring and case management, as compared with case management alone, may significantly reduce re-admissions in a Medicare Advantage population."

The researchers used a group of 875 Medicare patients, who were enrolled in the combined case-management and GMP program, to compare their results with 2,420 matched control patients, who were only case managed. Claims data were used to document an acute care admission followed by a re-admission within 30 days in the pre-intervention and post-intervention periods.