Remote patient monitoring technology market sees big growth

New technologies in remote patient monitoring will push the market to $22.2 billion by 2015 as these solutions are used increasingly to combat soaring healthcare costs and personnel shortages and reduce hospitalization times, according to a recent report from healthcare market research firm Kalorama Information.

In its report, “Remote and Wireless Patient Monitoring Markets,” the New York-based company values the U.S. market for remote patient monitoring at $7.1 billion in 2010 and forecasts an annual growth rate of 25.4 percent.

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The report specifically details the area of the eICU or tele-ICU, which it says is blossoming. 

Due to the predicted shortages of intensivists, cardiologists and nurses in the U.S. in the next five to 10 years, the concept of these eICU systems in a critical care setting is growing, said the report.

"With an eICU, intensivists can remotely monitor the condition of patients, check vital signs, and communicate with hospital personnel, patients and their families in multiple locations from one command center," said Bruce Carlson, publisher of Kalorama Information. "It should help to relieve stress on cardiologists, critical care physicians and nurses."

“The concept of eICU is interesting because it demonstrates one way, albeit in an experimental group, that patient monitoring devices could mitigate the higher cost areas of healthcare,” continued Carlson. “The average cost of a single 24 hours in the ICU can be $8,000-$10,000. It does decrease beyond the first day, but you are still averaging as much as $3,000 per day. Every day of savings is important. This has medical centers and insurance companies interested, and should bode well for sales of these devices.”

“Patients can reduce their stay in an ICU utilizing patient monitoring systems and move to a different area of the hospital, which is less costly for the hospital. Of course there’s a human element too, and thus at least in one case study, mortality was reduced 25 percent in the ICU, which is good news,” added Carlson.

Products by Philips, Draeger AG, GE Healthcare and Abbott are among those featured in Kalorama’s report and are expected to see big growth in the next few years.

“The Philips Visicu system is one of the many forms that remote and wireless patient monitoring systems take, one of the things driving the $7.1 billion remote patient monitoring market. It is a novel approach and not the largest segment, which would likely be routine diabetes and cardiovascular monitoring between home and physician office or one area of the medical center to another,” said Carlson.