SMART MEDICAL DEVICES MARKET ANALYSIS

Market Challenges And Opportunities

Market Dynamics

Increasing demand for better disease management tools and shift of populace towards smart medical devices are major factors propelling growth of global smart medical devices market. Chronic diseases such as diabetes, hypertension, asthma, and other chronic obstructive pulmonary disorders (COPD) are highly prevalent across the globe, which increases the demand for tools and services to manage their symptoms. For instance, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), in 2017, the number of people over 18 years of age suffering from diabetes have increased from 4.7% in 1980 to 8.5% of the global population by 2014. Moreover, the WHO also states that over 235 million people across the globe are suffering from asthma. The development of smart medical devices such as continuous glucose monitors as well as smart sensing wearable devices to monitor the patients suffering from various chronic diseases have resulted in the growth of smart medical devices market. For instance, in March 2017, Health Care Originals, a U.S. based company developed an Intelligent Asthma Management Kit (ADAMM) that is capable of identifying asthma attack before the wearer notices its symptoms. Moreover, the rising awareness of patients in disease monitoring and fitness is further expected to boost growth of global smart medical devices market. According to a survey article published by the Oxford University in 2016, internet of things associated with smart wearable devices is expected to connect over 20 billion object modules to the internet by 2020. Thus, the rapid surge in adoption of smart wearable gadgets will propel growth of smart medical devices market. However, inaccuracy of the devices in monitoring medical parameters and differences between the actual and displayed results could hamper the market growth. For instance, according to the study by Diabetes Technology & Therapeutics in 2016, the accuracy and precision of continuous glucose monitors (CGM) were less than that of blood glucose meters for the measurement of capillary blood glucose, indicating the increased risk of errors in the clinical application of CGM.