Number of remotely monitored patients to reach 4.9 million by 2016

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."
 

The report indicates that the most common conditions that can be monitored by mHealth systems are chronic diseases, from which over 200 million patients in the EU and the US suffer. These diseases include cardiac arrhythmia, hypertension, ischemic diseases, sleep apnea, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
 
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.

Report: Medical monitoring products to push home health market

The home health monitoring market is expected to generate higher revenues from services that are based on using monitoring products, according to a recent report published by research company Parks Associates.

In a report, entitled "The Role of IP in Revitalizing PERS", Parks said that the Personal Emergency Response Service (PERS) market is currently changing as it is re-introducing services as a more modern care concept. The report indicates that technology, particularly IP-enabled technology innovations in hardware, software, and service platforms, is driving the market transition.

"We in Aerotel defiantly feel that demand for services that use advanced monitoring solutions," said Ofer Atzmon, Vice President for Business Development and Marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems. "Products such as our GeoSkeeper offer a new level of safety beyond existing PERS and traditional social alarm systems."

GeoSkeeper

Parks analysts said that the long-term threat to the PERS industry incumbents comes from new senior independent living solution providers. These players offer a complete suite of software and service components that address needs for proactive risk assessment, self-care for chronic conditions and wellness, social communication, and health education/lifestyle adjustments.

They said that these providers offer PERS service as complementary and sometimes complimentary, service. The technology platform on which these capabilities are offered has to be IP-enabled, and this platform's cost will only go down as technology matures and operational scale builds.

The authors, Harry Wang and Jennifer Kent, said that the market is changing as new senior-friendly services, using either IP or traditional phoneline-based communications infrastructure, are now offered. They estimated that PERS services are expected to transform into a full-fledged senior independent living solutions.

Wang and Kent concluded that in the future, the market will become less fragmented and IP-based service infrastructure and IP-connected monitoring devices will be two of the change agents to give the PERS industry a rebirth.

mHealth apps downloads to reach 142 million in 2016

The number of global downloads of mHealth applications is expected to more than triple to 142 million by 2016, according to a new study published by Juniper Research.

Source: GSMA

The research company added that the number of mobile healthcare and medical app downloads will reach 44 million as soon as 2012. It added that the combination of smartphones and app stores has created a vibrant mHealth market.

Juniper added that there is a need for US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) clarification on which apps require approval as such a move will add further impetus to the market. This is particularly important as the US is seen as the leading market in remote patient monitoring.

"Acceptance of new healthcare practices like remote patient monitoring will come directly from consumers becoming engaged in mHealth through the smartphone," said Anthony Cox, who wrote the report.

The authors noted that future mobile hardware peripherals will greatly extend apps capabilities. They added that application peripherals hardware designed to work with mHealth apps will allow smartphones to become an important portable accessory to the healthcare establishment for both diagnosis and relaying medical data to healthcare staff.

In a separate report, published last week, ABI Research predicted that the sports and health mobile apps market will grow to over $400 million in 2016 from $120 million in 2010.

ABI Research's report, "Mobile Devices and mHealth", estimated that growth will be spurred by the ability of mobile handsets to easily connect to wearable devices that in turn can deliver new functionality, accuracy, and appeal to sports and fitness applications. 

"As applications increasingly become part of a bundle that ships with wearable devices, revenues from mobile applications will lag behind the growth in app downloads," said Jonathan Collins, principal analyst at ABI. "Mobile application downloads will actually grow at nearly twice the rate of revenues between 2010 and 2016, with more than a billion downloads annually by 2016."

Two-thirds of healthcare providers plan to increase mHealth expenditures in 2012

Two-thirds of healthcare providers in the U.S. plan to implement or improve their use of mobile technologies in the next 12 months, according to a new survey conducted by CompTIA.

Source: CompTIA

The report indicated that more than 50 percent of healthcare professionals already use smartphones for their work. 38% of physicians with a smartphone are using medical-related apps on a daily basis and half of them are expected to do so over the next 12 months. At the same time, 25% of healthcare providers are already using tablets and another 21% expect to do so in the coming year.

"While laptop and notebook PCs are commonplace in the medical community, the next wave of mobile adoption is well underway as providers turn to tablets, smartphones and applications to increase productivity and improve patient care," the authors noted.

The report shows that almost one-third of providers use smartphones or tablets to access Electronic Medical Records or Electronic Health Records systems, with 20% expecting to start engaging in this mobile usage within the next year.

While mobile health (mHealth) is on the rise the use of telemedicine solutions remains low, with just 14% of healthcare professionals actively following news and trends in telemedicine and 37% expressing little interest in the topic.

Healthcare providers see the greatest benefits of telemedicine in the areas of continuing medical education (61%), specialist referral services (44%) and patient consultations (37%).

The U.S. helathcare sector employs over 17 million workers. The total healthcare spending will total over $2.7 trillion in 2011, making it the single largest componenet of the U.S. GDP.

GSMA: Asia Pacific mHealth market to rise by 70% to $7 billion by 2017

The Asia Pacific mobile health (mHealth) market will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of almost 70 percent to $7 billion in 2017, the GSMA and accounting firm PwC said in a joint report.  

In a report, entitled ‘Mobile Health – Enabling Healthcare’, the two bodies said that mobile health services that represent the largest opportunity across the region are monitoring services (55% market share in 2017) and diagnostic services (24%). 

Source: GSMA & Decisive Media. Photographer: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert

The report indicates that the Chinese mHealth market will be the world's largest in 2017. This will be driven by growth in monitoring and diagnosis that will facilitate the delivery of effective healthcare to a widely spread population who have poor health access.

This trend creates a market opportunity of some $2.4 billion in China, well ahead of other large markets such as Japan ($1.3 billion) and India ($540 million). 

"The figures are in line with our expectations," said Ofer Atzmon, Vice President for Business Development and Marketing at Aerotel Medical Systems. "We have identified Asia and the Pacific in general, and China in particular, as strategic markets and have expended our activities there accordingly".    

Monitoring represents the biggest opportunity in Japan (63% market share) due to the large number of elderly, while diagnostics represents the biggest opportunity (67%) in India as most Indians live in rural areas. 

“Mobile health is a prime example of how mobile operators can leverage existing platforms and technology to provide innovative services to connect people throughout Asia Pacific,” said Michael O’Hara, Chief Marketing Officer, GSMA. 

“Asia Pacific’s predicted growth in connected devices, through an array of applications, means that the region is on the threshold of radically transforming the lives of its consumers, professionally and personally. To make the Connected Life ubiquitous, it’s vital that the mobile industry works with key adjacent industries in the region, including healthcare,” added O’Hara. 

Aerotel to showcase a personal GPS location mHealth device at Medica 2011

Aerotel Medical Systems will present a variety of remote monitoring and mobile health (mHealth) solutions at Medica 2011 in Dusseldorf, Germany on November 16-19, 2011 at Hall 9, Stand C01.

Aerotel intends to present its innovative GeoSkeeper, a personal wireless GPS location and tracking device, at Medica, which is the world largest medical trade fair.

GeoSkeeper offers a new level of safety beyond existing PERS (Personal Emergency Response System) and traditional social alarm systems. The GeoSkeeper is expected to soon receive the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Certification, paving the way for further strengthening of Aerotel's position in the lucrative US market.

In a newly designed booth in Medica, Aerotel will also showcase the Connect-CELL telehealth homecare hub, which was recently awarded by Connected World Magazine the prestigious gold Value Chain Award in the home health category. The Connect-CELL hub is part of Aerotel's e-CliniQ system, which is one of the most cost-effective home telehealth solutions available today with proven clinical and economical benefits.

“Since Medica 2010, we've expended our presence in Asia, the Pacific and Eastern Europe,” said David Rubin, Aerotel Medical Systems President and CEO. “Medica 2011 will provide us with an excellent opportunity to present our cutting edge solutions to those who are not familiar with them yet.”

With more than 4,560 exhibitors and 116,000 square meters of floor space, Medica 2011 is considered as the leading event for in the medical industry. Two thirds of the exhibitors this year are from outside Germany and more than 60 countries will be represented at the fair.

Aerotel ready to conquer Asian market

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.