Low-Acuity Patient Monitor Market to Thrive

Despite a tough global economic climate, demand for multiparameter patient monitors is predicted to increase by 40% in the next five years. These are the latest findings of IHS (Englewood, CO, USA), a leading global source of critical information and insight.

The global low-acuity, multiparameter patient-monitor market revenue growth is projected to occur in both emerging and developed markets due to restricted healthcare budgets, either as an effect of the recession or due to a fundamental lack of available healthcare resource. For example, in Western Europe, low-acuity monitors are becoming popular as an alternative to the often over-equipped, and therefore expensive, high-end monitors. But while the low-acuity monitor market should show sustained high growth, the high-acuity monitor market will not reach this level of growth until 2017, when emerging markets have more available resource and developed regions are less restrained economically.

There is also a focus in countries such as the United States and Japan to improve care in low-acuity wards, as it will allow patients to be moved from expensive high-acuity wards sooner, while still being monitored to ensure they receive any necessary care. This is leading to demand for low-acuity monitors to ensure all patients are monitored at all times. In turn, this reduces the number of adverse events that occur during the patient’s hospital stay, ultimately reducing the burden on healthcare systems. The phenomenon is being driven by legislation changes in the United States, which have stopped reimbursement for the treatment of events that should never have occurred.

Demand for low-acuity multiparameter patient monitors is also high in emerging markets, such as Latin America, Africa, and parts of Asia, where a basic healthcare standard is being implemented, resulting in low-acuity monitors that are used to provide a sufficient monitoring across all acuities, so that the demand for low-acuity monitors will be sustained past 2017. But after the establishment of basic care, the demand for low acuity monitors will decline, as high acuity monitoring is the key priority.

“Healthcare system development is very closely related to trends in demand for both high and low acuity monitors,” said report author Holly Ingram, clinical care analyst for IHS. “Healthcare providers are looking for cost-effective monitoring solutions; therefore many will forego high-end capabilities that they do not need or will not use.”

Globally, IHS forecasts a compound annual growth rate of almost 7% in the low-acuity, multiparameter patient monitor market, almost double that predicted for the high end multiparameter monitors. As the key driver for growth is a focus to improve healthcare standards, both in emerging markets and in the low-acuity wards in developed markets, demand will be sustained for the foreseeable future. The total multiparameter business was estimated as the largest of all segments in the patient monitor market, at USD 1.9 billion.

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