Wearable Developers Focus on Medical Grade Devices to Gain Reliability in Healthcare Delivery: A Report

MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA: Frost and Sullivan, a provider of economic research and analysis services, in its latest report states the global healthcare wearables earned revenues of $5.1 billion in 2015 and estimates the same to reach 18.9 billion by 2020, at a CAGR of 29.9%.

The report also predicts that consumer health wearables will increase at a CAGR of 27.8 percent, whereas medical and clinical wearables will increase at a CAGR of 32.9%.

Frost and Sullivan finds wearables dedicated to chronic disease monitoring and other clinical applications are expected to transform care provision models. Wearable devices are beginning to be used in a wide range of healthcare-related applications  which include remote patient monitoring, eldercare, and wellness programs, to name a few.  The types of wearables being utilized not only include devices such as fitness trackers and smart watches, but also emerging categories such as connected wearable patches, pain management devices, wrist devices, and posture monitors are among others.

Though the present market for consumer fitness technologies provide vast opportunities, the devices produced in the market are faced with high levels of competition and small product lifecycles. Hence, developers of these wearbles are looking to invest in these anywhere-anytime support-medical grade devices to gain relevance and reliability in health management .

According to Frost and Sullivan, these wearables must simultaneously justify value to patients, payers and clinicians in order to gain a foothold in the market.

However with the growing market for these wearables, some have failed and struggled to achieve the expected traction. Frost and Sullivan states over engineered or unnecessarily complex wearables as the common problem.

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“Breakthrough technological innovations in wearable electronics, sensors, alternate power sources and wireless platforms are enabling novel applications that would not have been feasible even five years ago” says Frost & Sullivan’s Transformational Health Research Director, Venkat Rajan. “Moving beyond basic consumer centric applications, newer wearable devices with more robust and reliable feature sets open a wide spectrum of clinical use cases. Clinical wearables must concurrently justify their value to payers, patients and clinicians to gain market foothold.”