Medical Devices Get Ready To Make House Calls

The population is aging and medical costs are soaring, creating a greater need for home-based healthcare solutions. These pressures have led to an increase in the number of healthcare devices on the market as smaller, portable, and less expensive homecare technologies replace larger, costlier equipment.
The numbers are daunting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the worldwide number of people age 50 and older was 650 million in 2006. WHO expects this total to reach 1.2 billion by 2025. In the U.S. alone, those age 65 or older now constitute an increasing share of the population, a number that is expected to rise steadily in the future.
The healthcare market is big business. According to the U.S. government, the U.S. spends $2.5 trillion on healthcare, representing 18% of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP). ABI Research forecasts that 59 million wearable home health devices will be used by 2014 and that the total number of wearable devices will be 420 million by then, when devices for sports and fitness applications are counted.
The Freedonia Group puts the present market value of home healthcare medical equipment at well over $7 billion, when technologies for respiratory therapy, intravenous (IV) injections, dialysis, patient monitoring, wheelchairs, walking assistance, medical furniture, and safety devices are considered.
Today’s devices give patients a lower-cost and hassle-free option for monitoring and in some cases treating their health conditions right in their own homes. There’s less of a need to have them travel to a hospital, medical clinic, or doctor’s office. Healthcare is becoming more decentralized.
Portable home healthcare medical gadgets include blood glucose, blood pressure, and heart rate monitors, digital thermometers, pulse oximeters, wheezometers for patients with asthma and other respiratory disorders, fall and movement detection devices for the elderly and disabled, and digital scales for weight monitoring and management. Therapeutic devices for sleep apnea are available as well. And, many home fitness devices are being updated to include health measurement and management functions

http://electronicdesign.com/article/cover-story/medical_devices_get_ready_to_make_house_calls.aspx