Spiralling Healthcare Expenditures To Push Adoption Of Remote Patient Monitoring Practices
Remote Monitoring to Provide Cost-effective Healthcare for Ageing, Chronically Ill Populations
London - As governments across Europe attempt to curb spiralling healthcare expenditures, tremendous growth opportunity is being created for technology-enabled services such as remote patient monitoring. Homecare for the aged and chronically ill - both rapidly expanding population segments- through remote patient monitoring is underlining its immense potential as a means of delivering cost-effective, high-quality healthcare.
Nearly half the hospital bed occupancy in Europe is by patients suffering from chronic illnesses, many of whom require continuous monitoring. This is increasing pressures on Europe's already overstrained healthcare facilities.
Remote monitoring of chronically ill patients will significantly reduce costs incurred on hospital stays and shorten waiting times for doctor appointments (a rampant problem in Europe, particularly in the United Kingdom), thereby promoting its appeal.
Over the next decade, Europe's ageing baby boomer segment will consume a major proportion of national healthcare budgets. The quest to control related growth in healthcare outlays while providing effective care will give a fillip to alternative methods of healthcare delivery.
"The only means to tackle anticipated increases in healthcare expenditures is the introduction of systems such as remote monitoring," states Aarati Ajay, Senior Research Analyst with Frost & Sullivan (http://healthcare.frost.com). "These systems ensure that patients are well taken care of in such a manner that the necessity of meeting doctors is minimised, either by proper disease management or by regular remote monitoring of the patient."
While the market does exhibit outstanding growth potential, a key challenge remains the governments' refusal to reimburse remote monitoring of patient populations. Already, however, positive trends are emerging in the United Kingdom and Germany, with strong indications that remote monitoring is likely to come under the reimbursement bracket in the near future.
Notwithstanding the lack of reimbursement, the nascent European remote patient monitoring market was valued at $100.8 million in 2004. Growing at an estimated compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 28.0 per cent from 2004-2010, the market is set to reach $352.8 million in 2010.
Target areas for remote monitoring include patients suffering from congestive heart failure (CHF), diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Other major population groups that could potentially use remote monitoring systems include asthmatics, patients requiring post-operative care, those suffering from trauma, those receiving wound management as well as patients in need of mental health monitoring and people suffering from hypertension. Remote care could also help monitor the elderly, those with weight management problems and pregnant women.
Although CHF is currently the leading contributor to market revenues, trends indicate that COPD and diabetes will gain importance in about 3 - 5 years' time. Market development also indicates a paradigm shift over time - from solely monitoring to more comprehensive management functions.
At present, the competitive structure of the market is relatively 'open'. Abundant growth opportunities mean that competition is unlikely to intensify for another decade with competitive success hinging on providing optimum technology, service and price.
Current participants include medical device companies manufacturing monitors for patient monitoring (Philips Medical Systems, Medtronic, St Jude and Biotronik); companies that do not manufacture the monitors, but provide the total system for home monitoring along with other services (Docobo, Health Hero Network and Viterion) as well as companies such as British Telecom that can leverage their telecom competencies to exploit growth opportunities.
"Remote patient monitoring is the future of healthcare delivery and offers remarkable opportunities for new entrants," concludes Ms. Ajay. "Maximising growth and market development will depend on consortium approaches and information dissemination among the medical fraternity and healthcare payers about the numerous benefits of these systems."
SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan