Firm sees Health Data Gateway as Strategic Investment Focus for device makers, care providers

New digital health research from Parks Associates predicts U.S. unit sales of networked medical devices will exceed 14 million units by 2018, more than five times the sales from 2012. In the report Networked Medical Devices: Innovations & Business Models, analysts attribute multiple factors in driving this market, including an aging population and reforms spearheaded by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

"The addressable market for networked medical devices includes 68 million Americans with hypertension and 26 million with diabetes," said Harry Wang, Director, Health & Mobile Product Research, Parks Associates. "Consumers are also demanding more autonomy in managing their care, which will drive the market in 2014 to improve patients' self-care experience. Network connectivity will enable new business models built on health software and services instead of hardware and consumable sales."

Parks Associates reports networked medical devices, including weight scales, glucometers, and ECGs, will use a variety of networking protocols, such as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and ANT+, to enable patient self-care and point-of-care diagnosis.The networking functions on these medical devices create the need to aggregate sensor, test, and behavioral data, so solutions such as Qualcomm Life’s 2Net platform, which aggregates device data and can transmit to the cloud, will become more important in 2014.

"The health data gateway market will garner substantial interest from both device makers and care providers,” Wang said. “Health data will be a hot commodity in this ACA era. Device makers and health data gateway providers, both incumbents and start-ups, will leverage these data to build new revenue opportunities and create new business partnerships."

Parks Associates analysts noted Alere’s acquisition of MedApps adds a cloud-based solution to the company's offerings. Omron Healthcare’s Bluetooth blood-pressure monitor is competing with smartphone-based WiThings’ solution, and Insulet’s OmniPod Insulin Pump will face challenges from San Diego-based Tandem Diabetes Care and U.K.-based CellNovo. In niche device categories such as pulse oximeter and sleep apnea test devices, innovations from incumbents such as Nonim, Masimo, and ResMed and start-ups such as iHealth Labs and NovaSom will broaden the use cases of these devices for both end users and care professionals.

Device categories analyzed in Networked Medical Devices: Innovations & Business Models include weight scale, blood-pressure monitor, glucometer, insulin pump, ECG, pulse oximeter, sleep apnea test, and home INR test.

Subscribe to Parks Associates' Digital Health Newsletter at www.parksassociates.com/newsletter and download the whitepaper Connected Health Opportunities for Service Providers at www.parksassociates.com/connected-health. Parks Associates is hosting CONNECTIONS™ Summit at CES on January 7, 2014, and the inaugural Connected Health Summit: Engaging Consumer on September 4-5, 2014, in San Diego.

About Parks Associates: Parks Associates, a woman-founded and certified business, is an internationally recognized market research and consulting company specializing in emerging consumer technology products and services. Founded in 1986, Parks Associates provides business intelligence and research services through its proprietary methodologies developed over decades, including quarterly surveys of 10,000 internet households.

The company's expertise crosses many industries: home security and smart home, streaming video, broadband and pay-TV services, digital media and platforms, gaming, Wi-Fi and home networks, connected health, support, consumer electronics, home control systems, energy management, and tech solutions for the multi-dwelling (MDU), small-to-medium business (SMB), and commercial building markets.

Each year, Parks Associates brings thousands of leaders together for its webinars and annual events. The firm hosts the annual executive research and strategy conferences CONNECTIONS™, Connected Health Summit, Smart Energy Summit, Smart Spaces, and Future of Video. https://www.parksassociates.com
 

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