The North American market for connected care technology is will see a CAGR of 11.4 per cent during the next five years to reach 57.2m users by 2028.

The report from IoT analyst firm Berg Insight found that around 33.3m people in North America were using connected care products at the end of 2023.

The figure refers to users of medical alert systems and remote patient monitoring (RPM) in Canada and the USA. RPM is the largest segment of the connected care market with 29.9m users at the end of 2023. The market for medical alert systems is smaller with an estimated 5.2m users. There is an overlap between the market segments as medical alert users can also be equipped with RPM, and vice versa.

RPM technology comprises connected medical devices and monitoring services that are used for remote management of patients suffering from arrhythmia, asthma, chronic kidney disease, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, congestive heart failure, coronary artery disease, diabetes, hypertension or obstructive sleep apnoea.

The leading use cases for RPM have thus far been sleep therapy monitoring. Patients that suffer from sleep-disordered breathing such as obstructive sleep apnoea are typically prescribed an airflow generator, including continuous positive airway pressure, bilevel positive airway pressure and automatic positive airway pressure devices. However, many patients find the devices unpleasant to use and poor compliance is common.

Payers are increasingly requiring that patients comply with their treatment plans to be reimbursed for the device, which has driven equipment providers to connect the devices. ResMed is the largest player of connected airflow generators, partly thanks to the company’s decision to include a cellular IoT module as standard in its Air Solutions product family. Philips is the second largest provider.

Examples of major players in the RPM segment include Abbott, Accuhealth, Biofourmis, BioTelemetry, Current Health, Lark Health, Medtronic, Omada Health, Omron Healthcare, Optimize Health, Philips, Teladoc Health (Livongo) and Withings.

In the medical alert market, Connect America has emerged as the largest service provider after the acquisition of the Lifeline business from Philips in 2021, and is followed by Lively, Medical Guardian, MobileHelp, Life Alert Emergency Response, ModivCare and ADT. In 2024, Medical Guardian acquired Mobile Help from Advocate Aurora Enterprises bringing their combined active users to more than 600,000.

“Both mobile and in-home medical alert systems are popular in North America at the same time as new innovative products enter the market including sensor-based systems and smart lamps for fall detection,” said Vatsala Raina, IoT analyst at Berg Insight. “Major consumer-oriented technology companies also incorporate PERS [personal emergency response system] features in standard wearables, smart speakers and smartphones.”

The North American market for connected care is affected by several trends and developments that will impact the competitive landscape during the coming years. Changing demographics are driving the demand for home care, while technological developments and regulatory changes affect the competitive landscape for vendors. The industry is becoming more patient-centric, which calls for integrated systems and improved interoperability of connected care technology.

One example of this development is the on-going convergence of the medical alert and RPM markets, where more medical alert providers have started to offer RPM technology. This includes integrated products that enable a combined delivery of medical alert and RPM services.

Care providers will start to offer more proactive and predictive services by continuously analysing user data and acting on abnormalities. Such products rely on data not only from medical alert devices, but also from other sources such as smart-home sensors, healthcare records and connected medical devices.

“Artificial intelligence has made significant progress in these, from disease detection to personalising treatments analysing large amounts of patient data,” said Raina. “Cyber security has at the same time become very important and it is clear that more work and investments need to be done to ensure that patients and their data are kept safe also in the future.”

The brochure for the report can be found at media.berginsight.com/2024/11/27133352/bi-connectedcarena3-ps.pdf.