Today, I read a report suggesting that technologies allowing frail elderly patients to age in place are really coming into their own. The new study by P & S Market Research is predicting that the global smart home healthcare market will expand at a combined annual growth rate of 38% between now and the year 2022.
This surge in demand, not surprisingly, is emerging as three powerful technical trends — the use of smart home technologies, the rapid emergence of mobile health apps and expanding remote monitoring of patients — converge and enhance each other. The growing use of IoT devices in home healthcare is also in the mix.
The researchers found that fall prevention and detection applications will see the biggest increase in demand between now and 2022. But many other applications combining smart home technology with healthcare IT are likely to catch fire as well, particularly when such applications can help avoid costly nursing home placements for frail older adults, researchers said. And everybody wants to get into the game:
- According to P&S, important players operating in this market globally include AT&T, ABB Ltd, Siemens AG, Schneider Electric SE, GE, Honeywell Life Care Solutions, Smart Solutions, Essence Group and Koninkllijke Philips N.V.
- Also, we can’t forget smart home technology players like Nest, and Ecobee will stake out a place in this territory, as well as health monitoring players like Fitbit and consumer tech giants like Apple and Microsoft.
- Then, of course, it’s a no-brainer for mobile ecosystem behemoths like Samsung to stake out their place in this market as well.
- What’s more, VC dollars will be poured into startups in this space over the next several years. It seems likely that with $1.1 billion in venture capital funding flowing into mHealth last year, VCs will continue to back mobile health in coming years, and some of it seems likely to creep into this sector.
Now, despite its enthusiasm for this sector, the research firm does note that there are challenges holding this market back from even greater growth. These include the need for large capital investments to play this game, and the reality that some privacy and security issues around smart home healthcare haven’t been resolved yet.
That being said, even a casual glimpse at this market makes it blazingly clear that growth here is good. Off the top of my head, I can think of few trends that could save healthcare system money more effectively than keeping frail elderly folks safe and out of the hospital.
Add to that the fact that when these technologies are smart enough, they could very well spare caregivers a lot of anxiety and preserve older people’s dignity, and you have a great thing in the works. Expect to see a lot of innovation here over the next few years.
