The IoT healthcare market is being driven by the rising demand for improved healthcare, reduced cost of care, and evolution of high speed networking technologies and is expected to grow from USD 32.47 Billion in 2015 to USD 163.24 Billion by 2020.
North America is expected to lead the IoT in healthcare market in terms of market size during the forecast period. APAC is expected to grow at the highest CAGR during the forecast period.
IoT, in conjunction with cloud computing and big data, is creating lucrative opportunities in the healthcare sector. The increasing number of connected medical devices and the proliferation of smartphones has contributed significantly to the rise of IoT. The reduced cost of care, improved healthcare outcomes, and development of high speed networking technologies are likely to drive the growth of IoT in healthcare. Furthermore, concerns regarding patient data security and privacy are restricting the adoption of IoT in healthcare. These concerns are triggered by the alarming increase in cyber threats such as hackers gaining access to patients’ medical records. IoT solution providers are prioritizing digital security for medical devices and software within the IoT infrastructure to limit these threats. Lack of common governance standards or interoperability is another factor that limits the adoption of IoT in healthcare. Various alliances and organizations are joining forces to eradicate or minimize interoperability issues and streamline further product development.
The global IoT healthcare market has been segmented on the basis of medical devices, systems and software, connectivity technologies, services, applications, end users, and regions. Medical devices are further categorized into wearable external medical devices, implanted medical devices, and stationary medical devices. The systems and software segment is divided into remote device management, network bandwidth management, data analytics, application security, and network security, while the connectivity technology segment comprises Near Field Communication (NFC), Wi-Fi, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), cellular, satellite, and ZigBee.
The systems and software segment is expected to witness the highest growth, owing to the increasing number of applications and the widespread adoption of cloud computing across healthcare organizations. IoT technologies are used widely by various types of healthcare organizations such as hospitals, surgical centers, clinics, clinical research organizations, government and defense institutions, and research and diagnostic laboratories for different business needs. Globally, IoT adoption in healthcare is increasing due to the growing demand of smart connected technologies in the APAC and Latin American regions.
Major vendors that offer IoT solutions globally are Medtronic, Inc. (U.S.), Philips (the Netherlands), Cisco Systems (U.S.), IBM Corporation (U.S.), GE Healthcare (U.K.), and others. These vendors offer different types of medical devices and IoT solutions. They also offer various services such as system integration, professional services, and support and maintenance services.
