Open market for health-monitor-device makers as insurer interest grows

The COVID-19 pandemic has led many consumers to monitor their health from the comfort of their home using telehealth capabilities and wearable devices, but a recent 451 Research survey showed that while these devices are useful for monitoring chronic conditions, no company has cornered the market.

The Voice of the Connected User Landscape survey, which was conducted in October 2020, found that the 73 respondents who said they had a connected medical wearable device primarily used them for monitoring either vital signs or chronic conditions.

Over half of these respondents, 52.1%, said they used a dedicated health device to check their blood pressure, and 42.5% said they used a device that monitors vital signs like temperature, respiration and heart rate. Meanwhile, 34.2% of respondents said they used a device for blood glucose monitoring.

According to 451 Research senior research analyst Brian O'Rourke, the responses indicate that there are two types of patients who predominately use devices to monitor their health. The first, O'Rourke said, are patients who have recently been released from the hospital.

"[The] patient's doctor would want to head off a costly and inconvenient hospital readmittance by monitoring the patient in order to catch any issue before it becomes more serious," O'Rourke said in a Jan. 19 report.

The second category is patients with chronic conditions like high blood pressure or diabetes, and these individuals may be more likely to avoid doctor's visits due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Insurers are beginning to cover the costs of certain wearables, O'Rouke said. Of the respondents, 7.7% and 7.6% said their insurer covered fitness tracker and disease monitoring devices, respectively, although this fell to just 6% for chronic pain management devices. For 20.2% of respondents, their health insurance plans did not cover wearable medical devices at all, while over half, 53.8%, did not know if devices were covered.

O'Rourke expects this trend will change, with the pandemic likely having a positive effect on insurance coverage as wearable medical devices become more popular.

A fragmented market

While health monitoring usage and insurance coverage are likely to increase, the manufacturing market appears fragmented, leaving an opportunity for companies that offer devices with multiple use cases to eventually lead the pack.

The leading makers of respondents' devices included Koninklijke Philips NV, OMRON Corp. and Care Touch, which offer multiple types of remote care devices, and these companies continue to add new capabilities.

OMRON announced at CES 2021, the Consumer Technology Association's annual technology and media trade show, that in addition to its blood pressure and heart health monitors it has now created VitalSight, its first remote patient monitoring service. Through this service, patients with hypertension can receive a kit of OMRON products and access their physicians remotely.

Philips recently made a couple of deals to expand its health monitoring capabilities — the $2.8 billion acquisition of heart monitoring device-maker BioTelemetry Inc. and the $635 million acquisition of medical data technology provider Capsule Technologies Inc.

Below the top three, the medical device industry only gets more fragmented with 12.3% of respondents saying they own an AliveCor Inc. device and 11% each owning a product from either iProven, TytoCare Ltd. and EarlySense Ltd.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues into 2021, more companies will likely enter the market, and O'Rourke said dedicated health devices will play a key role in the adoption of telehealth and remote patient monitoring — at least while COVID-19 rages on.

"While the current pandemic has accelerated the adoption of these devices due to restricted healthcare provider access and relaxed regulation, the key to their continued success will be the post-COVID-19 era, when in-person visits again become more readily available," O'Rourke added.

451 Research is part of S&P Global Market Intelligence.