Market Challenges And Opportunities

Hospital stretcher has a well-established market worldwide, as hospital stretcher is a basic necessity for any healthcare facilities. Increase in number of ambulance facilities is expected to support the market for hospital stretchers. Large hospital facilities need intra-hospital transport for patients, in turn creating a highly conducive environment for the hospital stretcher market, on the backdrop of burgeoning growth of the healthcare sector. Furthermore, motorized stretchers and hydraulic stretchers are also designed to reduce patient fall during transportation. However, the healthcare service providers face challenge in transporting bariatric patient so hospital stretcher is anticipated to grow rapidly due to rise in obese population.

Rising number of bariatric patient expected to fuel the growth of hospital stretchers market in the near future:

Bariatric stretchers have been assumed as the fastest growing segment, due to increase in obese population. According to Centre for Diseases Control and Prevention (CDC), 34.9% of the population was obese and annual medical cost of obesity treatment was around US$ 147 billion in 2008. Worldwide bariatric procedures performed in 2013 was pegged at 468,609. Additionally, 40% of U.S. population was categorized as obese in 2015 as per an article published by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. This inadvertently creates a highly conducive environment for growth of the bariatric hospital stretchers.

Furthermore, driving factors for hospital market as increase in number of road accidents, also increase in number of ambulance facilities according to WHO, around 1.25 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes. Additionally rising aged population is also expected to fuel the growth of hospital stretchers market in the near future, as aging population is associated to increases in hospitalization to 1.03 million in Hong Kong in 2012, according to International Journal of Health Policy and Management.