Promising Forecasts & False Suppositions

The forecasts in the ehealth medium keep pouring down and they put forward very promising scenarios. Deloitte Center for Health Solutions' survey found that 50% of consumers want a "personal monitoring device" to alert and guide them to improve their state of health or treat an already existing condition. A research done by PricewaterhouseCoopers places the market of mobile health applications at $7.7 billion with 40% of U.S. adults "willing to pay". In 2009, McKinsey's survey on mobile health estimated the market at $50 billion to $60 billion worldwide and $20 billion in the U.S. Parks Associates projects the wireless home health monitoring market will reach $4.4 billion in 2013.  Juniper Research places the market of remote patient monitoring via mobile network at $2 billion by 2014.

It cannot be denied that some of these reports are commissioned by various players looking to boost one aspect of the market or another. But what is there behind these numbers?

The talk about the healthcare and ehealth has reached such an extent that we can now no longer appreciate the market for what it is in reality. The Intel Health blog  (Intel Healthcare is part of Continua Alliance) notes that when referring to mhealth "The phrase has become so slippery, so ubiquitous as to become almost useless. We must be more careful in defining and aligning what we're talking about." When I started this blog, I paid little attention to what the market actually was and is. I took it for granted, but as researching Continua and their strategy, I realized the market is comprised of manifold players (chip producers, standardization bodies, hospitals, product developers, middleware designers, basically a total of 230 representatives).

I mentioned the PricewaterhouseCoopers’ forecast since it was talked over in the online and offline. This survey found that 40% of consumers are willing to pay for mobile health applications. But what does pay mean? The same survey argues that a monthly subscription to a mobile phone-based service which can manage health problems can cost no more than $5, a meager figure for the billions projected for the entire market. The value isn’t yet given by what the customer is willing to pay since the market is still immature. Hmm…back to the market now, aren’t we? By immature I mean that end users are not yet aware of what they will actually buy and how it will actually impact their everyday life. And then it makes all the sense in the world to have a regulations body like Continua, which is not official in the very sense of the word but whose voice is heard because it listens in turn to all the market contenders.

As an organization that also decides upon involved standards, it is voluntary and open for new comers (companies able to pay a fee), open and public to some extent as they publish guidelines and additional information, and serves a general purpose for the society.

Another initial supposition of mine was to consider the alliance as a means to increase profits for companies joining the organization. When writing the first post, I already had the last one in mind entitled “Money makes the world go round” (They actually charge for information upon request). Now, I still believe that decisions taken are also based on financial aspects, but at the same time, I believe that the primary aim of Continua is to fill in the gaps necessary to accomplish a truly innovative healthcare system. The challenges for this organization are not negligible with both the FDA and EC lurking in the shadows, but the strategy is sound – cooperation between the majority of companies in the market will have the same effect as the imposed official regulations – and will achieve logo certified interoperability.