mHealth: A 5-Year Look Ahead

By Megan Williams, contributing writer

With all the challenges that mobile health brings with it, the innovation remains a powerful answer to some of modern healthcare’s most pressing challenges. Issues like climbing expenditures, an increasingly disbursed population, and a growing incidence of diseases like cancer, heart conditions, and diabetes can all be addressed through the strategic use of mHealth solutions.

Grand View Research has released the report, “mHealth Market Analysis And Segment Forecasts To 2020,” as an overview of the growing and changing mHealth market. Solutions providers looking to enter this segment and understand some of the opportunities and challenges that their clients face will find it particularly interesting.

Areas Of Interest

The report covers topics including:

• market size in 2013 as well as growth trends for 2014 to 2020
• factors driving growth and challenges for participants in the industry
• industry leaders in 2013, their products, and strategic initiatives
• the top performing products, regional markets, applications segments, and end-use segments in 2013 including how well these are expected to perform in 2020

Service Insights

The report also analyzes services offered within the mHealth segment. These include:

• diagnostic and monitoring services
• healthcare systems strengthening
• wellness and prevention (read about federal recommendations here)
• infection disease management
• monitoring services

Of the segments reviewed, monitoring services was the largest at about 63 percent of the overall market in 2012. The sub-segment includes chronic disease management, post-acute care services, body trackers, and independent aging solutions. Most of the revenue came from already developed markets with high disease incidences. Vendors and mobile operators were the largest participants in this area.

The healthcare strengthening solutions category is comprised of solutions including healthcare surveillance and administration, practitioner support, and emergency response.

Market Participants

The report also breaks down participants in the sector. These are device vendors, content players, healthcare providers, and mobile operators. The latter group is expected to stay not only the largest segment through 2020, but also the fastest growing. With their mix of end-to-end solutions, mobile telemedicine, and health call centers their ranking is easily understood.

Competition

Partnerships are a key focus in the section devoted to competition: “Companies operating in the industry have been adopting product innovation and development as the key growth strategy. Strategic partnerships and research and development activities are also employed by major players. In order to drive user adoption, partnerships with major healthcare providers and ensuring user-friendly services are of critical importance. Ensuring compliance with treatment and provision of services in a consolidated and cost effective manner is crucial for ensuring adoption on a global level.”

Going Deeper

To read more about the tangible benefits mobile apps specifically can bring your clients, read “The ROI Of Mobile Apps for Your Healthcare Clients.”