M2M for Patient Care Monitoring

The Remote Patient Care Market (M2M Machines to monitor People)

The 65+ age group is slated to experience a strong growth in the coming years. As we age so do our needs for frequent check checkups and fixes to ensure we are in good health - same as a car - Older the car the more trips to the Auto Repair Shops. Looking at the graph below we see a sharp increase in the 65+ population in starting around 2010. This segment will be in need of frequent high end medical care. Once way to meet this need is to staff up the care giver organization - which is very costly. The other option is to improve the efficiency of the current system and use technology to scale up to meet the demand. Remote Patient monitoring is a possible solution to mitigate this problem. This is a classic M2M application that has all the standard challenges of connectivity , Privacy and Security.

Why is Remote Patient Care Attractive?

The remote patient monitoring market is a nascent market. Currently it is valued at $81.1 million dollars in 2005 for the US market. To put this in perspective the total US Disease Management Market was valued at $1.01 billion. This is a small slice but factor in that the majority of the Baby Boomer's will be in need of medical care in the next 5- 10 years and you can sense the potential for this market. The challenge is that this type of new technology and shift in thinking in terms of medical care needs a stimulus for it to become main stream and accepted. Talking about a US centric model this imputes needs to come from the government and or the Health Care provider organizations such as the HMO's. Once these big guns certify and promote this technology it will help reduce the cost burden on the medical system as a whole.

Who Gains from this?