ANDHealth has released a report demonstrating that Australia’s emerging digital health industry is in a strong position to tap into growing global demand for digital health solutions.

The COVID-19 pandemic has provided a catalyst for the industry, but it has also exacerbated a number of existing commercialisation challenges such as access to customers (71%), ability to raise capital (62%) and ability to secure government funding (44%).

Globally, the digital health market is predicted to reach US$505.4 billion by 2025, up from US$86.4 billion in 2018. ANDHealth’s report — Digital Health: The sleeping giant of Australia’s health technology industry — is reported to be the largest analysis of Australia’s digital health industry, spanning 317 companies and highlighting how aligned our sector is to global market opportunities.

ANDHealth CEO and founder Bronwyn Le Grice said, “Australia’s decades-long policy of supporting innovation, our significant investment into digital health capabilities and infrastructure, and now our highly successful management of the COVID-19 pandemic has given us an unprecedented opportunity to build a world-leading digital health industry. “ANDHealth’s data shows that our local sector has a pipeline of world-class innovation and technology.

However, digital health companies face some unique challenges as they move along the path towards commercialisation, not least of which is that as a sector it struggles for recognition and appropriately focused funding structures here at home.

“To fully realise the potential of this nascent sector, we need to provide support. This sleeping giant, if awakened, will achieve the triple aim of economic growth through high-value STEM-based job creation, increased advanced manufacturing and clinical trials activity, and sovereign health system capability and resilience.”

A blueprint of Australia’s emerging digital health industry ‘Digital health’ is a term that is largely misunderstood as ‘health IT’. However, ANDHealth’s report uses the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) definition, which is much broader and includes categories such as mobile health, wearable devices, telehealth and telemedicine, and personalised medicine. It analyses 317 Australian digital health companies, providing a blueprint of the local sector.

International reports point to a number of significant drivers of digital health in a post-pandemic world including telehealth and telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, the diabetes market, mental health and addiction, symptom checking and triage tools, digital therapeutics and clinical decision support technologies.

Australia’s industry is well aligned to some of these opportunities with: 37% of companies developing technologies aimed for home use (remote patient monitoring); 25% focused on diabetes and other chronic diseases; 17% focused on mental health; 13% focused on clinical decision support; and 10% focused on diagnosis and screening.

“While only 9% are focused on telehealth and telemedicine, ANDHealth believes this reflects the limited reimbursement for these types of businesses prior to the COVID-19 pandemic,” Le Grice said. “Assuming ongoing reimbursement frameworks for telehealth, we would expect to see significant growth in the numbers and maturity of companies across this segment.

“Beyond telehealth, the regulation of software as a medical device provides an opportunity for reimbursement for remote patient management platforms, which can further support patients to access high-value care in their home. This will create market pull for a significant number of local companies.”

In Australia, the vast majority of companies are looking at processes and behaviours at the clinical and patient level. A third (33%) are deploying technologies in self-management of disease, patient behaviour change and medication management.

Another quarter (26%) are seeking to address challenges in workflow (both clinical and non-clinical). COVID-19 has highlighted the need to keep as many people out of hospital as possible, and in Australia we see over one-third of companies (37%) looking to deploy technology into the home, and a further 8% into the workplace.

Read the full article here http://hospitalhealth.com.au/content/technology/article/australia-s-digital-health-industry-set-to-drive-economic-growth-1590793202#ixzz6SPSIwYHH 

This article was originally posted on Australan Hospital and Healthcare Bulletin Online on Thursday 9th July 2020.