Revenue from home healthcare devices and services could more than double by 2018, market research firm IHS Technology says, as those products and services become richer in features.
Traditional home health devices like walkers, wheelchairs and other durable medical products are being joined in the market by sensor-enabled monitors, medication adherence apps and telemedicine platforms.
Convergence has already begun on the product side, for example with a number of mobile personal emergency response devices (PERS). A partnership between Caremerge and Lively’s which joins mobile and web care coordination tools with activity monitoring to enable more proactive senior care, is another example.
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IHS says in a new report that it expects the same phenomenon will occur in home health services, where independent living providers, telehealth companies and PERS makers join to create more comprehensive health services. This becomes increasingly important as providers continue working to improve quality of care and lower costs through coordinated care efforts.
“As home health technologies converge, a new generation of comprehensive solutions will provide the foundation for a continuum of care,” said Roeen Roashan, a medical device and digital health analyst at IHS.
The Grand-Aides program, pioneered by academics at the University of Virginia, is an early example. The nonprofit trains staff at healthcare systems to hire and supervise workers who visit patients at their homes once they’ve been discharged from the hospital. These people observe patients’ daily routines, enforce the nurses’ teaching and connect patients with their nurses via a video conferencing platform.
New technologies will cause the amount of data being generated by home health devices to skyrocket. Health IT companies that can develop solutions to leverage this data to support clinical decision-making processes and population health management will benefit, too.
Revenue from home health devices and services will be around $5.7 billion in 2013, according to IHS, and is forecast to grow to $12.6 billion by 2018.
[Image credit: Lively]
