HIT Infrastructure Mobility Solutions Rise with IoT, Telehealth

March 07, 2017 - The healthcare mobility solutions market is expected to grow significantly as organizations continue to digitize their HIT infrastructures.

The rising demand for mobile healthcare solutions is one of the biggest IT infrastructure issues facing healthcare organizations, according to a new Grand View Research report. As value-based care initiatives become a more significant part of healthcare, organizations are seeking mobile technology to support clinician interactions with patients.

The report predicts that the healthcare mobility solutions market will reach $227 billion by 2025, driven mostly by the need to support the innovative mobile devices that the healthcare industry is adopting.

Report authors suggest that the demand for enterprise mobility platforms is expected to grow as organizations seek ways to manage and optimize operational efficiency.

Application development and management for mHealth and telehealth is also expected to grow over the next several years as remote monitoring and remote care become more prominent. The report suggests that mobile applications will exhibit the fastest growth rate over the forecast period.

Mobile health was the most invested in healthcare infrastructure technology last year. Specifically, mobile health was far and away the most invested in healthcare technology, according to the Mercom Capital Group annual funding and mergers and acquisition activity report for health IT and digital health released last month.

Venture capital funding heavily favored healthcare mobile applications last year in response to the demand for mobile solutions in healthcare settings. As consumer devices become more advanced, patients are expecting more advanced technology when it comes to their health.

Clinicians have begun to favor mobile technology, which helps them better engage with patients. However, healthcare IT administrators are faced with securing mobile devices in a way that is user friendly and HIPAA-compliant.

Mobile device management (MDM) and enterprise mobility management (EMM) are the most common solutions used to manage and monitor mobile devices. EMM and MDM solutions secure endpoint devices and ensure that the devices are only accessing approved applications. Accessing compromised applications can compromise an entire health IT network and put patient data at risk.

Traditional EMM and MDM solutions secure mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets, but the growth of the Internet of Things (IoT) charges organizations with securing a different kind of mobile device.

Healthcare IoT devices include clinician wearables and connected medical devices, such as physiological monitors, mobile medical apps, and MRI/CT/ultrasound scanners. Organizations need to manage the actual devices, but also the applications that go along with them.

Healthcare mobile devices also include telehealth and remote monitoring solutions. Over the past several years, telehealth and remote monitoring have become a large part of health IT infrastructure for many healthcare organizations.

Telehealth grew significantly in relation to mobile health in 2016. Telehealth uses advanced wireless and mobile technology to care for remote patients while remotely connecting to the advanced technology provided at the hospital location.

Organizations such as Children’s Mercy in Kansas City Missouri worked towards improving its telemedicine program to treat patients that could not physically travel to their facilities for care. The hospital’s telemedicine technology enabled remote patients to receive the same care at a distance.

Mobile telehealth solutions need to be properly monitored and managed to ensure that the technology being used works correctly and is secure to benefit the patient.

Mobility management solutions allow healthcare organizations to modernize patient care by providing secure tools in a more convenient way that supports innovative and more interactive patient care.