Market Research Report Available: Remote & Wireless Patient Monitoring Markets

A new market research report has just been made available that discusses the market and investment potential of remote and wireless monitoring of patients.  I do not endorse this study or suggest it's purchase.  I am making it's existence known.

Here's a list of some of disorders covered by the study:

• Asthma
• COPD
• CHF
• CHD 
• Diabetes 

Here are a few quotes from the press release:

Patient monitoring systems are emerging in response to increased healthcare needs of an aging population, new wireless technologies, better video and monitoring technologies, decreasing healthcare resources, an emphasis on reducing hospital days, and proven cost-effectiveness.

Of these new high-tech patient monitoring systems, nearly all focus on some form of wireless or remote patient monitoring. ...

...  the following companies are profiled in detail in this report:

• Abbott Laboratories, Inc
• Aerotel Medical Systems
• GE Healthcare
• Honeywell HomMed LLC
• Intel Corporation
• Philips Medical Systems
• Roche Diagnostics Corporation

Here's the link to the press release and links to purchasing this study: http://www.marketresearch.com/product/display.asp?productid=2645944&g=1

 

Article: Wireless Remote Monitoring Prevents Complications of Chronic Diseases

An interesting article about the benefits of remote monitoring in the care of patients with chronic diseases from the Press of Atlantic City, 8 March 2010.  Here's the link to the article:  http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/life/monday_health/article_1333e585-e3a6-5ba8-a411-75530f6b63cf.html

Quotes from the article:

Improving management

By early 2012, Americans will use about 15 million wireless health-monitoring devices, according to a forecast from ABI Research, which tracks mobile-technology trends. The mobile health market is projected to more than triple to $9.6 billion in 2012 from $2.7 billion in 2007, according to study from Kalorama Information Inc

[T]he first pilot project in the nation to assess whether the use of remote digital devices with data sent over the Internet to a doctor's office improved management of multiple chronic diseases - diabetes, heart disease and high blood pressure, also known as hypertension. 

Diabetics and hypertensive patients increased the number of days between appointments by 71 percent and 26 percent respectively ...
"One of the great promises of wireless (health) is making it a part of the patient's daily life, not an interruption to what they're doing every day," ...

From personal experience I believe the last sentence I quoted is among the most important in the article.  The entire process should be so smooth, so automated, so uncomplicated and unintrusive that the patient's life is uninterrupted and that the data is seamlessly collected and sent to the patient's caregiver.

Two other items to note.  The first is a brief discussion of the sensors connected to the patient's body.  They mention band-aid size electrodes.  I am not sure if these are the "digital plaster" that I've discussed in an earlier article.  http://medicalremoteprogramming.blogspot.com/2009/11/digital-plaster.html
Or something else.  I do not know, but it would be interesting to find out.  If I have any informational, I'll post it.  If you have any information, please enlighten us with a comment.

The second issue of note is the discussion in the article regarding payment, and who will do it.  Given the convoluted nature of our system of payments, this will be the most difficult issue to resolve, I believe.  It's ironic considering that remote monitoring saves money.   I think the technical issues will be minor in comparison.  I hope I am proved wrong.

Revamping the Revenue Generation Model in the Medical Device Industry

My fourth posting on this blog on 29 September 2009 was part of a multi-part examination of Medtronic's remote programming patent (US Patent # 7,565,197 that was granted in 21 July 2009).  I suggested that the patent patent implied two directions in the development of medical devices:

1. The development of a single, common hardware platform based on a generalized processor, similar to TI's low power processor. (Add urls).
2. Medtronic device capabilities would be defined primarily by software.  Furthermore, the patent defines a capability for software to be downloaded to a device, thus defining the capability for updating the software on the device.

We've learned that there are technologies in development that could significantly increase the battery life of devices: maybe at some point eliminating the need for battery replacement all together.

Today, physicians, hospitals and device manufacturers receive the bulk of their payment when a device is implanted or replaced.  Thus, the current business model of device manufacturers relies on primarily on product such as an ICD or CRT and leads.


However, the Medtronic patent suggests the possibility, maybe even the likelihood of strategic shift from a product to a licensing business model. This would suggest a business similar to software companies who charge a flat or yearly fee for the use of software.  Instead of a replacement, the patient receives a software upgrade and the device company receives payment for the software upgrade.  This is one step removed from a pure product to a service-oriented model, but it still treats the software as a product.  Nevertheless, it provides flexibility to the medical device company in that revenue comes less tied to the sale of objects, and more tied to the services provided to the customer.


An even more innovative approach and more in-line with a service-oriented business model would be to have the software redefine the capabilities of the device itself while implanted in the patient.  For example, upgrade an ICD to a CRT-D by changing software.  I do not know the technical, implantation or leads-related issues of doing this, however, from a software standpoint, there should be nothing stopping a device manufacturer who has taken the common hardware design approach.

A pure service-oriented model would change on the basis for the services provided.  Since I'm a technologist and not an MBA who has worked in the device industry for decades, I cannot define all the possible revenue-producing services medical devices with remote monitoring and remote programming could provide device companies.  I can say that the services that medical device companies can provide medical care providers and their patients is becoming less and less tied to the devices themselves. So a more service-oriented perspective in the medical device industry seems warranted.  

It seems apparent that for medical device companies to expand their services and patient-care and management capabilities with information-based services over the communications infrastructure, they are going to have to change the way they receive revenue.  The current business model and means of generating revenue does not provide incentives to companies to expand into information based services given the current product-based revenue model currently in use.  I suspect that in a relatively short time, Medtronic will propose a new revenue model.  I shall be watching for the signs.