News

M2M in Healthcare - just what the doctor ordered

Raise your hand if your health insurance costs rose by more than double the inflation rate this past year. Well, you're not alone. The US spends about $1.65 trillion a year on healthcare, nearly 15% of GDP, and the largest segment of the population - the baby boom generation - has just begun to retire.

Fortunately, new M2M technologies appear to be entering the scene at just the right time - making patient care better and cheaper. With the use of wireless and other device networking communications technologies, hospitals, doctors, and patients are beginning to reclaim patient care. Medtronic and Guidant have developed implantable, wireless, MEMS-based pressure sensor to monitor cardiac pressure, a key marker of worsening heart failure. By offering remote, real-time monitoring of this key marker, these systems may enable physicians to intervene earlier in the disease progression, improving patient outcomes and eliminating costly hospitalizations.

Other medical device companies, including Abbott Laboratories, Matsushita, GE Medical, and Bayer Healthcare Diagnostics have all started creating their own versions of remote device monitoring. A key M2M player in the space is Axeda, working to make Device Relationship Management a reality for numerous medical device manufacturers. A customer example is Beckman Coulter, that now allows for remote monitoring, diagnosis, and problem anticipation of its chemistry and hematology analyzers deployed at hospitals across the United State s. Combine these examples with the over 100 device companies we surveyed indicating that they have already begun enabling their products for remote monitoring, and we are beginning to see some pretty virulent adoption patterns emerging, and with no time to spare.

In fact, despite (or perhaps as a result of) a stifling environment of spending cuts, insurance company restrictions on level of care, and falling premiums, the healthcare space seems to be one of the fastest adopters of wireless remote monitoring. We are encouraged by this, if not a bit surprised. As a result, we will be examining this space more closely in the coming months and hope to be speaking with many healthcare device manufacturers and end users before April. If you have a healthcare M2M example or case study we should know about, write me.

John Williams
jwilliams@thefpgroup.com