APAC telehealth market to hit $1.79b by 2020

Increased usage of mobile and broadband internet in the Asia-Pacific region are driving the adoption of new healthcare delivery models, new analysis from Frost & Sullivan shows.

The research indicates that telehealth is helping to address challenges like rising costs, increasing incidence of chronic and infectious diseases, and ageing populations.

The telehealth market in the region, which includes telemedicine, remote patient monitoring (RPM) and mobile health (mHealth), is estimated to reach $1.79 billion in 2020 from $1.02 billion in 2015, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12%.

Telehealth is helping to optimize costs, improve resource efficiency in primary care and aged care, drive medical tourism, and engage the young and healthy population in early intervention, prevention and wellness, the report finds.

Governments in Asia-Pacific are also playing a significant role in driving technology development and adoption by investing in infrastructure, developing telehealth and eHealth roadmaps and creating policies that directly or indirectly attract investment in health technology.

At a country level, telecoms are also working with governments to help build Smart Cities and Smart Nation infrastructure with telehealth as a key area almost always included in a Smart City plan. Such projects allow vendors to expand their presence and penetration into strategic industries and also bring in their experience and expertise from other regions to Asia-Pacific.

However, while the demand for telehealth technologies is strong, vendors and healthcare providers in the region, have not been able to grow their businesses to the aspired scale and volume.

“A number of pilots have failed to reach commercialization due to poor clinician adoption, an unfavourable regulatory environment and the lack of clarity around payment models,” said Natasha Gulati, Transformational Health Industry Manager, Frost & Sullivan Asia-Pacific.

“Establishing a sustainable business model is the single most critical business challenge for market participants today and we are constantly working with our clients to introduce business model innovation in this domain,” she said.

The report concluded that the region now needs to explore change management strategies that will drive adoption, especially among providers.