mHealth is the new buzz in the mobile industry. Thanks to the growing importance of mHealth, the home health monitoring segment is also growing.
Reportlinker announced it has added the new report, mHealth and Home Monitoring – 3rd Edition from Berg Insight to its catalog.
According to the report, the market for home health monitoring of welfare diseases grew at about 9 percent and touched approximately $11.7 billion in 2010.
The diabetes monitoring segment, the largest among them, is worth about $9.7 billion. The market includes revenues from monitoring equipment, disposable materials and services. Wireless technologies have just begun to penetrate the market.
According to the Berg Insight report, more than 200 million people in the EU and the U.S. suffer from one or several diseases where home monitoring can be a treatment option. There are also people who want to monitor their personal health without a medical need and those monitoring their medication intake.
At the end of 2010, around one million patients used a home monitoring equipment service using an integrated connectivity. The figure does not include patients who 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.
The increase in the thrust for health monitoring has resulted into the emergence of health equipment monitoring companies.
Major technology and electronics companies including Bosch, Honeywell and Philips, or small specialist telehealth companies such as Cardiocom, iMetrikus, MedApps and SHL Telemedicine are into the health monitoring business. Many medical device companies are also active.
mHealth has also attracted telecom and IT companies to enter into the mHealth business. They are offering connectivity and data center infrastructure and services for service providers and device manufacturers that provide home medical monitoring services directly to patients or caregivers.
A number of application developers have released health and wellness apps for smartphones. Common app types include BMI and calorie calculators, diet guides, exercise guides and sport tracking apps. Smartphones are likely to be the primary monitoring device for many patients. Vital sign meters can be connected to handsets or PCs using Bluetooth.
However, there are also challenges such as the financing of wireless solutions, according to the report. To receive reimbursement, suppliers of medical products will have to prove their worth in a clinical and economical perspective. There is also an increasing focus on early diagnosis and home treatment – potentially enabled by new technology.
This year’s World Congress 2nd Annual Leadership Summit on mHealth found there is enormous potential of mobile technology to impact the availability, quality and cost of care, but there are also barriers.
However, the Summit concluded that simple yet effective solutions like daily remote monitoring of weight for CHF patients, text messages to pregnant teens and wellness apps for businesses raise their hope and expectations.
Rajani Baburajan is a contributing editor for HealthTechZone. To read more of Rajani's articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by
Tammy Wolf
