For anyone who's ever been in a hospital setting, the experience often proves less than ideal. Most of the time, hospital patients are just eager to return home to familiar settings and a familiar way of life. But with healthcare costs on the rise, and healthcare providers eager to find more efficient and cost-effective ways of doing things, the home health technology concept is also on the rise. A new report from Tractica shows just how far that technology could go over the next five years.
The Tractica report—titled “Home Health Technologies”—suggests that there were 14.3 million users of home health technologies in 2014, but by 2020, that number is expected to rise to 78.5 million. There is expected to be one major standout: the medical monitoring, diagnosis and treatment field. This field is expected to not only drive an influx of apps hitting the market, but will also help drive a variety of connected health devices as well.
The “Home Health Technologies” report also goes on to consider the market beyond the monitoring, diagnosis and treatment field, offering up forecasts for not only users, but also services and hardware. Furthermore, it offered profiles of major industry figures, and a broader look at the home health ecosystem. Several other markets, ranging from remote consultations to eldercare to even more preventative issues like health and wellness functions, are all given at least some consideration in the report.
Charul Vyas, who serves as a principal analyst with Tractica, offered some comment around the report, saying “Key factors driving interest in home healthcare technologies include rising healthcare costs, aging populations, and a rise in the number of people living with chronic diseases. However, significant challenges remain for the industry to solve, including regulatory issues, data security and privacy, and technology interoperability and integration issues.”
With healthcare being as broad and heavily diversified an industry as it is, it's not surprising to see plenty of interest in certain segments of the market. The Tractica report seems to be a wide-ranging look at the overall field, which should help it prove valuable to a wider portion of readership. An aging population—not just in the United States but in the world as a whole—helps ensure that the market for healthcare in general should be brisk. As new technologies allow medicine to decentralize, home health technologies—and the accompanying technologies that allow information to be gathered and the data protected as it should be—will likely prove in clear demand. Whether it's a surgical patient sent home to recovery or an elderly patient who needs extra help but wants to remain in the home, the applications for such technologies are wide and varied, and the motives to put them to work quite clear.
Only the arrival of 2021 will tell if Tractica's predictions bear fruit, but even if Tractica’s forecasts are only slightly on the mark, a big future lies ahead for the home health technologies field.
Edited by
Dominick Sorrentino
