Opportunities through M-Health
Innovations in mobile communications have opened up new ways of delivering healthcare and responding to some of the most persistent global health challenges. This is creating a whole new industry out of the convergence of ICT and healthcare, often referred to as Mobile health or M-health. But what precisely does it mean for domestic industries and regional development agencies ? Nicholas Mellor will be exploring this subject in a series of articles exclusively written for IBT Partners.
Some general considerations to start with. The success of this new industry will be based on networks and partnerships that enable us to bring the innovations to scale and realise their full potential. It will spawn a raft of new start up companies and regional initiatives exploring new business models. The global interest in this field is illustrated by the formation of the mHealth alliance which brings many of the leading players together with support from leading telecoms companies, philanthropists and entrepreneurs like Bill Gates and the United Nations.
The M-health business is garnering much interest and investment in research and development, and yet great uncertainty remains about what the structure of the market might ultimately look like. The argument in the UK goes that with 90% of the people owning a mobile phone, and health and welfare reform encouraging people to take charge of their own health options as well as treatment, the era of M-health has arrived. The same reasoning holds true in other countries.
Nevertheless, the predicted boom in sales of M-health related products and services has been slow in coming. Early studies to look at cost savings have been underwhelming. The Telecare Development Programme in Scotland which showed savings of £11m against an expenditure of more than £1.6bn – a mere 0,7%. Most of the operators in the telehealth or telecare field have built services around devices or call centres, and are struggling to persuade commissioners of health or social services to reallocate funds from other services towards these new devices or services.
Progress is being made. Research by Professor Lionel Tarassenko at Oxford University raised the possibility of a net cost reduction of £440,000 per 1,000 patients. Hospital admissions could be reduced and hospital patients could be go home earlier, M-health allowing for a home based monitoring programme.
Big players who have the breadth of technologies to weave together a robust and scalable enough service are entering the market. In August 2010, GE and Intel Corporation announced the creation of a 50/50 joint venture to build a new healthcare company focused on telehealth and independent living. The company brings together the combined assets of GE Healthcare's Home Health division and Intel's Digital Health Group.
The future may well see non-traditional players entering this market, such as grocers that are already doing home deliveries and selling telecoms services. Telecom companies are faced by declining margins in their traditional voice and broadband businesses, and some see healthcare services as the value added applications they need to offer as a means of growing profits once more.
The US may have the advantage over Europe with greater elective healthcare, scale and level of investment. The degree of socialized medical care in Europe is likely to make commissioners of new services more conservative, especially given the restructuring of public services as a result of the financial crisis. It may well be that the developing countries become the trend setters in new M-health services. In November 2010, the Rockefeller Foundation invested $1m to promote the pilots and partnerships needed to help realize the promise of M-health.
Uncertainties over standards, a proliferation of platforms and options and traditional buyers preoccupied with cutting costs of existing services rather than piloting new services for which there is no budget, have been some of the factors that have slowed the mainstream adoption of M-health services. IBT Partners is carrying out an industry-wide survey to look at what executives in the industry consider the main barriers to widely forecast growth, and what might be the factors that propel it from being an area of great potential to a profitable and fast growing business.
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