Market intelligence report: remote health

This document provides market intelligence into the sector defined as remote health by the Intermediary Technology Institute (ITI) in Techmedia. For the purposes of this document, the definition of remote healthcare is: those technology components which enable the delivery of treatment and monitoring of the condition by a medical professional who is at a different location from the patient. The report describes the future market opportunities, challenges, key drivers and the potential functional needs of the remote health sector.

Information was obtained following the principles of market intelligence gathering (also known as foresighting) established by ITI Techmedia. Both primary and secondary market data were acquired and collated. Primary data was collected using survey-based approach to gather attitudes from the head of the IT function within hospitals and face-to-face interviews with key potential suppliers in the sector. Desk research was used to obtain secondary data from internationally recognised market analysts.

The report indicates that although the market is currently relatively small, as a result of its nascent nature, rapid growth is expected in the remote health sector, particularly in the homecare sector. Market opportunities exist in both home and clinical settings. The following areas of opportunity were identified: managed services; component innovation; analytics; and focused telehealth offerings. There are three main trends in the overall healthcare market that have helped to create the market conditions for a substantial rise in the adoption of remote health technologies: an ageing population and the resulting increase in demand for healthcare; increasing consumer demands on healthcare systems; and technology that is rapidly increasing in power and reducing in cost. The drivers of homecare based remote health following from these key trends are: reducing costs; improving clinical outcomes; and improving quality of life. The most important drivers of clinical remote healthcare were identified as: geographical spread of population; scarcity of experts; and scarcity of resources in general. Despite the creation of new opportunities from such trends, a number of barriers to market entry exist for new technology providers. Such barriers include: up-front cost of solutions; protocols for care; and privacy and security in terms of data.

There were no recommendations as this was not within the remit of the report.