mHealth and wireless health markets get boost from global financial crisis

The mobile health (mHealth) market is expected to continue to grow fast as the global financial crisis strengthens the need for healthcare providers to cut costs, according to a new report published by business intelligence company GlobalData.

In a report, entitled "Mobile Health Devices and Applications – Global Market Briefing to 2018," GlobalData analysts said that mHealth market is expected will grow in value from some $500 million in 2010 to over $8 billion by 2018.

"The emergence of mobile technology has also been propelled by the financial crisis, which resulted in a renewed focus on improving cost efficiency, the improvement of clinical outcomes, and the quality of care provided to patients at home," the authors wrote.

In a separate report, published by the West Wireless Health Institute, it was predicted that the global wireless health market will reach $38.51 billion by 2016, at a CAGR of 19.43 percent from 2011 to 2016.

The report indicates that North America dominated the global wireless health market with around 45% share in 2011. The second largest market is Europe, and Asia-Pacific region is the fastest growing region with China capturing the largest market share of APAC region.

The difference between the figures in both reports is attributed to the fact that the mHealth market relates mainly to the usage of mobile devices by the health industry and specifically refers to the connection between the patient and the medical center. At the same time, the wireless health market refers to the wider usage of wireless technologies including at home, hospital and other locations as well as mHealth.

GlobalData predicts that the rapid emergence of mHealth technology will revolutionize future healthcare delivery and management by saving lives and reducing the economic burden imposed by growing chronic conditions such as diabetes, obesity and hypertension.

It notes that mHealth has proved to improve patient and physician convenience, enable remote monitoring, and improve care-coordination among medical professionals, patients and public health systems. 

Aerotel's Atzmon to discuss trends in Telemedicine, at the Med-e-Tel 2012

Ofer Atzmon, vice president for business development and marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems, will discuss the latest trends and success stories in Telemedicine at the Med-e-Tel 2012 Conference, which will find place at 18-20 April 2012 in Luxembourg.

The presentation will be held during the opening session titled: Global Telemedicine and eHealth Update. It will take place on Wednesday, April 18 in conference room 1, at 11:00-13:00. 

The presentation will describe the evolution of the telemedicine market, discuss how business models can be established and will present recent case studies. Among others, it will demonstrate how to enable remote monitoring of various health parameters such as electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure, blood glucose level, weight, etc. 

Atzmon will also talk about how mobile telehealth kiosks can helps bring healthcare to remote regions. The presentation will be given during the session on Evidence of Telehealth Outcomes, on Wednesday in conference room 3, at 16:00-17:45. 

During the conference Aerotel will showcase its innovative mobile health and telemedicine solutions, including: personal GPS location and tracking system, GeoSkeeper; wireless homecare hub for chronic patient monitoring and disease management, Connect-Cell; and the HeartView, a personal hand-held 12-lead ECG monitor.

Med-e-Tel is an official event of the International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth (ISfTeH) and the international federation of national associations, who represent their country’s Telemedicine and eHealth stakeholders.

ECG monitoring equipment market to reach $1.25 billion by 2017

The global ECG telemetry devices market is expected to reach some $1.25 billion by 2017, according to a report published by Global Industry Analysts (GIA). 

The report indicates that the market for ECG monitoring equipment continues to expand steadily. GIA's analysts attributed the rise to aging world population and increasing incidence of cardiovascular diseases. The added that, technology innovations are expected to boost the sales of telemetry systems.

"With most hospitals moving towards computerization for maintaining Electrocardiogram (ECG) records, investment in data management systems continue to account for a major share of hospital budgets," The authors noted. 

"Rising expenditure and scarcity of alternative home care resources and services are further expected to add to the growing demand for home telemetry monitoring devices. With growing number of people receiving home care, there exists strong potential for growth in the home care monitoring devices and telemetry devices segments."

The report names Aerotel Medical Systems as one of the major players in this field. Aerotel ECG telemetry devices include:

• Wireless ECG – Aerotel’s HeartView Personal hand-held 12-lead ECG monitor with Bluetooth connectivity. The solution enables easy and effective transmission of clinical information to a remote monitoring center for interpretation and immediate care. 
  
  
• Mobile-CliniQ – a mobile phone application that enables remote monitoring of various health parameters such as electrocardiogram (ECG), blood pressure, blood glucose level, weight, etc. 
  
  
• Heartline ECG Monitoring – Aerotel's Heartline is designed for various diagnostic, emergency and monitoring service applications. It comprises a complete range of personal, 1 to 12 lead transtelephonic or digital ECG devices for various remote diagnostic and emergency service applications. 

HeartView P12/8 Personal12-Lead ECG

The report indicates that while the US represents the largest regional market for ECG telemetry devices, Asia-Pacific represents the fastest growing region, creating significant opportunities.

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.