Another report to entice developers to develop healthcare products for future. The revenue from sales of WiFi-enabled healthcare products will reach nearly $5 billion in 2014, according to a recent report from ABI Research. The figure represents an increase of almost 70 percent over today’s market.
“It’s a pretty big business,” notes ABI Research vice president Stan Schatt in a classic understatement. “The strong uptake of Wi-Fi in the health industry is underpinned by its need for improved asset management, staff mobility, transfer of digitized records, and standardized administration of medications. In addition, government security requirements including HIPAA often mean replacing older wireless equipment with modern versions.”
Among the benefits of increased Wi-Fi penetration are reductions in operating costs, which is also a theme stressed by the Obama administration in its drive for healthcare reform.
However, healthcare Wi-Fi is no one-stop-shop. “No one vendor has all the necessary pieces to make a complete system for a major medical institution,” says Schatt. “It is truly a Tower of Babel.” So there is a premium on partnerships and systems integration. Generally it’s the wireless LAN equipment channel partner that integrates all these things and makes them work together. The manufacturers have to develop technology partnerships too, and share information so that devices can be optimized for their systems.
For more details , refer to press release by ABI research.
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