Rising Need for POCT Devices is anticipated to boost the Global Home Healthcare Market

Published On: March 2018

Market Overview:

Home healthcare is considered as a wide range of healthcare services that are provided at home for any illness or injury. The home healthcare services are less expensive, convenient, and as effective as the care provided at a hospital or any nursing facility.

The home healthcare devices include POCT devices such as blood pressure monitors, blood glucose monitors, fitness watches, and sleep apnea monitors. The blood pressure monitor is used by a considerable number of people under all age groups who are suffering from work pressure, anxieties, hyper and hypotension, and other such conditions. However, these factors are motivating the device manufacturers to innovate and launch innovative products.

Omron Healthcare has launched a series of devices for monitoring blood pressure in the arena of connected healthcare and is currently dominating the device market globally. With the advancement in technology, wireless blood pressure (BP) monitors have also been launched by many players. For instance, Withings launched wireless blood pressure monitor and iHealth wireless blood pressure wrist monitor that can be connected to an iPhone, iPad and other smart devices to record, store and transfer data. BP monitors are used by patients suffering from anxieties, hypertension, post-cure care of cardiac surgery, management of cardiovascular diseases, and others.

The increasing awareness for blood glucose monitoring device (POCT), increased awareness of safety measures to avoid the infectious diseases, and rising prevalence of diabetic population are the factors favoring the use of home care devices. As per the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2016, an estimated 422 million adults are living with diabetes mellitus and is anticipated to double in number by the year 2025. Most of these cases will occur in developing countries owing to the population growth, aging, unhealthy diets, obesity, and sedentary lifestyles.

Therefore, if the current trends in diabetes prevalence continue over the coming years, the number of diabetic patients would be tremendous after a decade. With the increasing prevalence of diabetes, the demand of home healthcare devices is expected to be enormous, thus resulting in the increasing demand for devices and products to monitor and control diabetes, eventually leading to increased adoption of home healthcare devices.

Which type of product will witness the most demand in the coming years?  

Pulse oximeters are the most common devices used in hospitals, clinics, diagnostic centers, and home monitoring. As of now, the medical device industry is majorly established in the U.S. and Europe. But trends are showing enormous growth opportunity in Asia; wherein China will play a prominent role in both usage and development of medical devices.

With the advancement of technology, many wireless, smartphone-connected pulse oximeters are also available in the market and have been proven to be a useful device for deploying real-time connected healthcare solutions. For instance, Samsung Galaxy S5 includes a pulse oximeter. The features such as portability, low costs, and ease of access are responsible for its use in cases of intensive care, emergency, in hospitals, recovery and even in aircraft. Pulse Oximeter is very convenient for non-invasive continuous measurement of the blood oxygen saturation. It is also useful for mountain climbers and athletes in case of deficiency of oxygen in their body.

Pulse oximeter is not applicable to any particular disease; instead, it monitors and checks insufficient hemoglobin in the blood (anemia), deficiency in the amount of oxygen reaching the tissues (hypoxia), provides early warning for hypoxemia and measures hemoglobin saturation. This device is used by the patients having asthma, Congestive Heart Failure (CHF), COPD, and others. The finger pulse oximeter is the latest advancements that rapidly detect changes in the blood oxygen level of the user.

New players are launching various gadgets such as fitness watch, are from developing Asian countries such as China, India, Japan, and the Republic of Korea mainly because of the low labor cost and low R&D cost. Thus, development of new connected portable devices can emerge as the new revenue pockets for the growth of this market.

The development of Novel Devices Offerings for the Growth in Global Home Healthcare Market

A number of players are operating in the global home healthcare market.

Koninklijke Philips N.V. is the leading medical device company that develops, manufactures, and sells medical devices. The company operates as a health technology company worldwide. The company is the leading medical device company that develops, manufactures and sells medical devices such as POCT, imaging and therapy devices.

1. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. holds the second largest share of the global home healthcare market. The company develops and manufactures pharmaceutical, medical and diagnostic products. The company is known for their technological innovations in the home healthcare market. In the recent years, Qualcomm and F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd. signed a strategic collaboration to improve remote monitoring and management of chronic disease patients.

Emerging Government Policies Stoking Growth of the Home Healthcare Market

The global home healthcare market is undergoing a rapid change owing to the regulatory frameworks for medical devices in developing and developed countries promising the high quality, performance, and safety of the devices. Medical device regulation must be improved to safeguard patient’s health moreover ensuring the effectiveness of these technologies and products reaching the patients. As a result of these strict regulations, quality, safety, and performance of devices are being monitored, thus providing patients with quality products and increasing the credibility and demand of approved medical devices in the market.

Conclusion