Market for Virtual Critical Care Solutions to Nearly Double

In addition to sparking untold demand for telehealth services, COVID-19 exposed the need for virtual critical care solutions that can remotely serve large patient populations.

Data compiled by Frost & Sullivan forecast the U.S. and EU-5 virtual critical care market to grow from $818 million last year to $1.5 billion by 2025, expanding 11.5 percent annually. 

“Value-based virtual critical care platforms, which are backed by strong clinical evidence for improving patient outcomes and lowering cost—compared to those that focus only on workflow optimization and patient stratification—are expected to be in demand over the forecast period,” said Kaustubh Suresh Savant, a healthcare research analyst at Frost & Sullivan. “To provide more preventive care rather than reactive, vendors will increase the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) predictive algorithms. Cloud-based integration of virtual care platforms could further improve the adoption and support quick scale-up.”
 
Patient monitoring and electronic medical record (EMR) companies are trying to develop their own integrated solutions. Competition is coming from niche analytics and B2C telehealth companies expanding their critical care portfolios to offset decreasing margins in low-acuity segments. Tier II solutions, including flexible software/web-enabled platforms, are expected to witness faster growth than Tier I, end-to-end solutions from big vendors and Tier III segments, which are specialized solutions for specific protocols/clinical decision support. 
  
“Increased awareness regarding the need for and benefits of virtual care solutions, specifically to address ICU problems such as maintaining a live population view, infection control monitoring, and coping with staff shortages, along with favorable changes to regulatory/reimbursement policies, is expected to act as a strong catalyst for the faster penetration of virtual critical care solutions in the next five years,” Savant said.
 
To tap into the growth prospects exposed by the rapid expansion of virtual critical care solutions, market participants need to focus on the following:

• As critical care becomes increasingly data-intensive, there will be a need for companies to collaborate with other cloud solutions providers.
• With changing reimbursement and regulatory scenarios for virtual care, vendors should better integrate their solutions with value-based care benefits.
• Market players should focus on region-specific, centralized project opportunities. 
• As the care moves from reactive to predictive, companies should focus on innovating their predictive offerings.
• Along with improvements in their solutions for monitoring critical care patients, market participants should leverage their solutions for low-acuity segments to reduce initial critical care admissions.