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Health Care Industry

Vital signs appear strong in competitive patient monitoring segment

Healthcare Purchasing News, Dec, 2003 by Curt Werner

From time to time in the healthcare device and equipment market, a perfect storm gathers. The tempest usually unites the forces of the mounting healthcare needs of an aging population of Americans and shortages of personnel within the provider community with a spike in technological advances tossed in for good measure.

For the patient monitoring market, that storm appears to have hit land, and the bulk of patient monitoring devices and equipment are found in hospitals in places like the ER, OR, critical care, neonatal intensive care, post-anesthesia care units and step-down units. So, thanks to market researchers Frost & Sullivan, the key factors that are driving the segment are:

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* The aging of the population: Estimates are that by the year 2030, more than 70 million Americans will be over the age of 65. Even more importantly to the market, more than 60 percent of those seniors will experience some form of cardiovascular disease and require treatment.

* Overcrowded emergency rooms: For a variety of reasons, the number of ER visits has soared to the tune of 110 million in 2001 and 108 million in 2000, up from 95 million in 1997 and just 92 million in 1992, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, the number of average annual visits per ER grew to 27,000 in 2000 versus 24,000 in 1997. Admissions of elderly patients to critical care units are also on the rise, and the numbers are up even higher for patients over the age of 75.

* Nurse and physician shortages: This well-documented dearth of skilled men and women is causing a ripple effect in terms of both care and technology. Estimates are that the nursing shortage will reach 20 percent by 2020 as the profession strains under the pressure. In 2000, 32 percent of all nurses were under 40 years old; in 1980, 53 percent were under 40. Also, nurses under 30 accounted for 25 percent of the profession in 1980, but made up only about 9 percent in 2000. In addition, there is a growing shortage of qualified critical care physicians at a time when demand is rising. Some estimates say that 90 percent of hospitals today are "at" or "over" capacity for treating patients. The shortages and bulging capacity are combining to create an obvious need for faster, simpler and more efficient monitoring equipment in hospitals.

It's clear to say that information technology and the flow of data are important elements in patient monitoring equipment. According to Meltem Buyukonat, patient monitoring industry manager for Frost & Sullivan, digitization and integration of monitoring equipment is "a taste of what we will be seeing in the future." In a recent press briefing on the subject, she noted advances in places like the Indiana Heart Hospital and George Washington University Hospital that are showing digital and wireless monitoring networks are investments that hospitals are willing to make in the name of relatively low-cost, high-value propositions. For example, she said that at the Indiana Heart Hospital, a digital workflow project has been initiated along with Waukesha, WI-based General Electric Medical Systems, a powerful and growing player in this market. She cited the wireless network at George Washington as an example of using monitoring equipment as an efficient way to bring equipment to the patient, not the traditional opposite of that equation. The system, she said, is even leading to shorter lengths-of-stay.

There are, of course, a variety of segments that comprise the overall patient monitoring market, but by and large it involves the real-time continuous or intermittent assessment of critical physiological parameters. The high-and lower-tech equipment used to monitor patients varies from basic devices like blood pressure units and thermometers to very sophisticated machines like multiparameter patient monitors and EEG machines. According to Frost & Sullivan, which published a report on the market this year, "monitoring devices aid end-users in detecting changes in a patient's condition quickly." Such monitoring, says Frost & Sullivan, promotes earlier intervention and helps in improving patient care and outcomes. This eventually translates into quicker recovery, shorter hospitalization and reduced expenses.

According to Frost & Sullivan's Buyukonat, the overall U.S. patient monitoring market totaled approximately $6.4 billion in 2002, and has been growing by an average of 10.5 percent annually since 2001. She expects that growth rate to continue through 2005.

The fastest growing segment of the overall monitoring market, she said, are the non-equipment categories. The strongest is the glucose testing market, which accounts for some 40 percent of the total. Disposable test strips represent 87 percent of those revenues, Buyukonat added. In fact, the U.S. glucose self-monitoring market alone reached $2.6 billion ($4.5 billion worldwide) this year. What's more, that thriving market is growing and should continue its surge because Buyukonat estimates that there are still as many as six million undiagnosed diabetes cases in the U.S.

Health Care Industry

Vital signs appear strong in competitive patient monitoring segment

Healthcare Purchasing News, Dec, 2003 by Curt Werner

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