02.05.2008 — There is more data supporting the trend that electronic in-home healthcare could someday become a big business for custom installers, changing the market from concept to reality.

A new report from the research firm InMedica predicts 10 percent annual growth in consumer medical devices due to the increasing prevalence of diabetes, hypertension, respiratory diseases and obesity.

The Consumer Medical Devices Production Yearbook forecasts manufacturer revenues to reach over $5 billion by 2011.

Consumer medical devices to manage diagnosed conditions such as diabetes and hypertension were the largest markets in 2006. Blood-glucose meters and blood-pressure monitors accounted for 21.5 percent and 23.4 percent of total market revenues in 2006 and are both forecast double-digit shipment growth to 2011.

The Consumer Medical Devices Production Yearbook 2007 by InMedica analyzes a number of factors driving the market for home-use health, fitness and wellness products forward.

Steven Burton, analyst at InMedica, says that "in addition to the increasing prevalence of diseases, the raising awareness of the benefits of self-monitoring and exercise regimes is also helping sales to the health-conscious consumer. The fact that many affordable consumer medical devices are now readily available at well-known retailers is also an enabler for growth."

The Collective Integrators Alliance is one integrator group focusing on this market. The Alliance, which is made up of independent custom installation companies from all across the U.S., has created a Digital Wellness package designed to help dealers sell monitored fitness equipment in homes.

Telehealth can also be applied to sports and fitness monitors, where devices designed to aid exercise can be used for post-exercise analysis.

"Extra features that can provide motivation, such as the ability to analyze collected data on a laptop or mobile phone using software that can set achievable exercise goals, have the potential to take the level of value to the consumer to the next level," says Burton.

The concept of telehealth is regularly heralded as a potential savior to heavily over-burdened healthcare providers. In a telehealth-enabled environment, a person can transmit health indicators such as blood pressure, heart-rate, blood glucose and temperature securely over a telecommunication network to health professionals for analysis.

"By shifting the management of chronic diseases away from the hospitals using consumer medical devices such as home-use digital blood-pressure monitors, the cost saving potential is huge," says Burton.

"Telehealth is an industry buzzword, and manufacturers are keen to align their products as telehealth enabled."