Owing to the role telecommunications is playing in the healthcare industry, the global telemedicine is projected to reach over $130 billion by 2025, up from $38 billion in 2018.
This growth, according to reports will be influenced by demand for better healthcare in rural areas, increasing growth in telecommunication and growing prevalence of chronic diseases in BRIC nations of Brazil, Russia, India and China.
It added that the global telemedicine market will witness significant growth in the near future due to the rising geriatric population, growing demand for accessible healthcare services, especially in remote areas and the advent of technological improvements related to mobile and internet.
Despite this projected growth, the reports, however, warned that high infrastructural costs and a lack of skilled resources may restrain market growth to a certain extent. On the other hand, favorable government initiatives present a huge growth potential for telemedicine in the BRIC nations. Also, the lack of telemedicine standards in the BRIC countries may pose a challenge to the growth of the BRIC telemedicine market.
Telemedicine has enabled healthcare professionals to access patient’s medical data, including electrocardiogram, X-rays, computed tomography scans and other imaging data remotely, thereby boosting the market growth.
Meanwhile, there are indications that the telemedicine market presents a huge opportunity for startups and legacy medical providers to adopt telehealth technology. However, to offer telehealth services, providers need a connectivity partner to supply a reliable and high-quality network even as 39 percent of healthcare professionals reported that cellular coverage is a challenge in hospitals.
This also presents an opportunity for telecoms operators to diversify their revenue streams, especially in saturated mobile markets, where the pool of new mobile customers is shrinking. To best capitalize on this connectivity opportunity, operators must ensure their equipment and networks are prepared for the unique challenges presented by the healthcare industry. The healthcare industry has strict data privacy standards, and telecoms must ensure their networks and equipment are prepared to meet these standards so they can quickly scale up in the case of an emergency, like China’s present crisis.