Until now, COVID-19 has made more than 86 million people its victim, worldwide, with over 1.8 million succumbing to the disease. The virus has hit every single sector and devastated the global economy. Among the different sectors, its impact on the healthcare market has been very drastic. In this article, we will talk about the same and see how the industry has responded to this pandemic.

Although the situation seems a bit under control now, when the virus created havoc, even the developed countries having a robust healthcare infrastructure failed to control the COVID-19 outbreak. The pandemic has challenged the conventional operations of the healthcare sector and has led to the quick adoption of digital health technologies; designed to aid medical professionals, let people stay updated about the disease, and form a better strategic plan. It is certain that post the pandemic ends, there will be a structural change in the way healthcare operates. Though the changes had already started taking place even before COVID-19 struck the world, the shift due to the pandemic has been seismic, and it has brought a digital transformation. Let’s find out how COVID-19 has made an impact on the healthcare sector.

The positive case count is continuously increasing and has surged the demand for medical ventilators all over the globe. Many healthcare companies have boosted their production capacity in order to meet the required demand.

1. Healthcare company Getinge extended its production capacity by 60% compared to its earlier capacity of 10,000.
2. Philips doubled its ventilator capacity from 1000/week to 2000/week.
3. GE Healthcare made an agreement with Ford to bridge the gap between demand and supply.
4. Medtronic stated that it would increase its production by 40% and more in the coming days.

More big players are coming forward to help fight this pandemic. Besides, many top-rated hotels and industrialists are setting their foot into quarantine center services and mask production, respectively. Start-ups are also making their contribution by launching apps that help track COVID-19 cases.

On one hand, there is a rise in demand and shortage in the supply, on the other hand, the spread of medical protectionism has raised challenges for supply chains in healthcare. Thus, many companies are also repurposing their production lines. But what’s the objective behind it?

In these critical times, the topmost priority for manufacturing companies is to protect their workforce and safely run operations, for which they have asked the workforce to put on masks and disinfect themselves properly at regular intervals. This has led to an increase in the demand for masks and other protective equipment. As a result, various companies have started their own production unit to meet the demands and so the operations can run smoothly.

Repurposing therefore not only helps companies retain their workforce but enables them to keep up with the demand. The insights have been collected from research by Market Research Future.

COVID-19 and the change in mHealth

The global mobile health or mHealth market is one of the rapidly evolving markets. It is estimated that the global mHealth market size would surpass $21.7 billion during the six-year period from 2016 to 2022, with a 36.5% Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR). It would benefit from the rise in the number of mHealth apps developed by the top players in the business to support mhealth or telehealth. With medical professionals being asked to treat patients during non-working hours, even on off days, and from distant locations, the rise in digital health has spurred. Also, with better integration of wireless technologies, the mHealth apps market size is only growing bigger.

With a 34% market share, the USA is leading the mHealth domain. The market would also be supported by Europe where the business is expected to grow at a 36.65 % CAGR during the forecast period. Some signs of growth can be witnessed in the Asia-pacific region as well.

The global mHealth market is looking forward to some advantageous moves from companies like Johnson & Johnson, Apple INC, Google INC, Philips healthcare, GE healthcare, Alivecor, Agamatrix, and many others. These companies are showing interest in the mHealth sector and making moves to produce some effective results. 

In May 2020, researchers introduced a new type of patch that helps monitor patients at home which is extremely beneficial in times like these where people have been asked to stay home and maintain social distancing. The patch, attached to the throat, monitors the movement of the lungs and checks for breathing sounds during coughing and other symptoms linked with the Coronavirus. This helps to better diagnose or treat the patient by minimizing the contact and hence preventing the spread.

Read: Femtech Mobile Apps- Digitizing Women’s Health

A few other ways COVID-19 is changing the mobile health scenario-

1. Medical Distancing

Medial distancing is a recently introduced term that refers to patients who try to avoid or delay seeking medical help for conditions that require them to meet a physician or go to an emergency room. They previously had gone for the treatment and would have still not hesitated if the COVID-19 fear wasn’t there but they are avoiding now so that they do not come in contact with the novel coronavirus. To deal with the pandemic, authorities like WHO (World Health Organization) and CDC (Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) have been lobbying for ways to reduce the contact between the healthcare providers and the patients.

Telehealth service has made a significant contribution to minimizing healthcare-specific virus transmission, and its effectiveness in areas like cardiology and diabetic care has been very promising. Although telehealth has proved to be an effective way to back up medical distancing, certain challenges are also associated with it that need to be addressed such as the patient’s age, educational background, and other privacy issues. However, companies that are into healthcare app development are working relentlessly on countering those issues.

2. Health Gadgets

With the rise in the COVID-19 cases, there has been a surge in the demand for health gadgets as well. The fear of getting in contact with the virus has quickly pushed the adoption of wearable devices and applications to make the public feel protected and giving them relevant information about their body temperature, blood pressure, and other health signals to help them monitor their health. The use of such devices enables people to keep up with their fitness and remain healthy.

3. Crowdsourced Monitoring

Timely tracking the infected people and the ones with whom they got in contact has been the need of the hour so that the spread of the virus can be prevented as soon as possible. But flexibility and timeliness have been some of the common issues in the surveillance systems.

With the help of COVID-19 tracking applications, digital health experts have made it possible to crowdsource disease monitoring. People all over the globe can enter their data, travel history, other people with whom they got in contact, etc. to allow healthcare agencies to find the prospects and track hotspots.

Final Thoughts

mHealth apps and technologies such as wearable sensors, digital tracing, and electronic patient-reported data are a feasible option in monitoring Covid patients at home and to detect early symptoms and anticipate who needs help, thereby helping prioritize diagnostic testing. The mHealth technology, when merged with diagnostic and immune status testing, could prove to be an important asset to control, if not prevent, the next wave of COVID-19.

Although the medical infrastructure might turn a bit different than what we are used to, the healthcare industry would only change for good.