Telemedicine Revenues More Than Double in Five Years

The telemedicine patient monitoring market, while small, is fast growing with a large amount of competitors and increasing awareness of effectiveness. These are the latest findings of Kalorama Information (New York, NY, USA), an independent medical market research firm.

Advanced patient monitoring systems are devices used outside of an acute healthcare setting that can transmit vital signs or other information to a healthcare professional for interpretation or action, usually from a patient’s home. Features of such systems include two-way communication in audio or video, electronic medical record (EMR) data transfer, and advanced diagnostic capabilities. An aging of the population, increasing healthcare costs, dwindling healthcare resources, advancing technologies, and the proven cost effectiveness of patient monitoring are driving market growth.

The United States holds the largest share of the market and it will be the battleground for many of the regulatory and reimbursement challenges for these technologies; yet telemedicine is a worldwide market. Economic struggles in many European countries, including Germany, have forced the government to review options to control costs in the healthcare system; the French healthcare system has developed new policies to help professionals obtain reimbursement and provide a newer method of healthcare delivery; and Switzerland has prepared the health system for telemedicine options with an advanced IT infrastructure and healthcare staff trained in medical technology.

However, unlike the market for systems used in hospitals, telemedicine patient monitoring market is more competitive and vendors are fragmented with a fair number of privately held companies. As a result, compatibility between devices and applications is of primary concern. AMD, Philips, Second Opinion Telemedicine (Torrance, CA, USA), Bosch, and LifeWatch (Rosemont, IL, USA) are among the many vendors operating in this market, most of them selling lower-priced units than hospital patient monitors. Market growth will increase over the forecast period as compatibility, privacy, and security issues continue to be resolved.

“The home healthcare and remote location health monitoring market is different from the hospital market, in large part because reimbursements are lower or are just beginning to take hold, and for some products are still nonexistent,” said Melissa Elder, Kalorama analyst and the author of the report. “Unit costs will go up as older units are replaced with wireless, handheld, and ambulatory devices.”

Kalorama Information has found that telemedicine patient monitoring market has increased from USD 4.2 billion in 2007 to over 10 billion in 2012.

Related Links:
Kalorama Information
Second Opinion Telemedicine
LifeWatch