Behind the mHealth, Telehealth Boom

I’ve been waiting for an article that not only made the bold statement that telehealth will explode in the coming years, but also gave the proper elements to support that statement.  Well, I think I found it here:

The market for technologies that bring healthcare to patients instead of the other way around—mobile healthcare and telehealth—has been growing steadily. And many predict it will take an even bigger jump in the next few years.

That growth will be driven by a number of factors, including government initiatives and a trend toward collaboration between healthcare organizations and vendors.

The global mobile healthcare application market was $1.7 billion last year and it’s expected to reach $4.1 billion by 2014. And the global telemedicine market is expected to reach $19.5 billion by 2014, according to two separate reports released by Infiniti Research, a global market research firm based in London.

Some of the factors leading to the growth in these markets, according to Infiniti’s research arm, Technavio are:

You know what they say about necessity being the mother of invention—there is a real need in developing countries and in rural areas here in the U.S. for better access to healthcare, and both mobile health and telehealth offer that access.

Some argue that there’s not much evidence that remote healthcare is significantly better than in-person care. But others contend that it is just as good if not better and that, in fact, remote health has an edge for its ability to ease physician and specialist shortages and save money. (Whether payers buy that argument is another story.

Better technology

Technology is advancing quickly in the mHealth and telehealth spaces. Vast improvements in audio and video capabilities, for example, make for more productive remote visits and more accurate remote diagnoses.

Government interest

The FDA is looking to oversee some mHealth apps that could be considered medical devices. Although an argument could be made that too much government oversight can stifle innovation, this step could lead to better quality medical apps. According to the report: “Proper rules” for the approval of mobile health applications will “increase the productivity and the accuracy of the Mobile Health applications in the future.”

The FDA wants to oversee mobile medical apps that are used as an accessory to a medical device that it already regulates or that transforms a mobile platform into a regulated medical device. The FDA has already cleared a handful of mobile medical apps, such as a smartphone-based ultrasound and an application that allows doctors to view medical images.

Telemedicine equipment is expensive. But the feds are also driving growth with federal grants aimed at using telehealth to improve rural access to healthcare or healthcare app developer challenges encourage—and reward—innovation. Finally, remote care payment reform is slowly expanding Medicare reimbursements for doctors who monitor patients remotely in urban and suburban areas.

Vendors have been partnering with or purchasing companies to secure their spot in the mHealth market, but increasingly they are working with healthcare organizations such as the Mayo Clinic and Meridian Health to develop healthcare apps. The telehealth industry has also seen a flurry of partnership and acquisition activity.

Remote radiology was one of the earliest examples of telehealth; remote or e-visits and remote or e-ICUs soon followed. A more recent trend toward remote surgery will also drive growth in the market, according to the report. “With the advent of advanced surgical techniques like Tele-surgery and robotic surgery, demand for image processing software and equipment is increasing,” the report states.

“Moreover, for finer movements in surgeries, surgeons are provided with 3D glasses. In the future, sufficient bandwidth will be required to minimize the lag time in the audio-visual simulation in advanced surgical methods through tele-surgery.”

An increasing need, improving technology, and more incentives all lead to better and more futuristic technologies from developers. “The exponential growth of Mobile Health recently is encouraging many corporations to enter this industry,” the Technavio report states. “Moreover, the existing companies in this fragmented market are coming up with a variety of innovative products in order to seek the first mover advantage in this domain.”