NETANYA, Israel — Aging populations, rising healthcare costs, promising remote and emerging markets and the advent of personally mediated healthcare as an extension of consumer spending, are tempting technology companies, including electronics and semiconductor companies, to jump into the medical electronics marketplace.
One of the most obvious reasons for the temptation is that healthcare is undergoing a digital revolution and is being transformed by wireless communications, computing, sensors, robotics, visualization, navigation and electromagnetic therapy. And as healthcare products and services begin to look more like consumer electronics it becomes clear that the same technologies can command far more money in the medical sector.
Getting a clear image on a screen is worth far more when it can guide successful life-preserving surgery than when it simply allows an umpteenth rerun on the cartoon channel. Global healthcare spending is worth trillions of dollars a year and it is being transformed by electronic technologies.
By 2020, more than 1 billion people will be senior citizens more than 60 years old. The CMS National Health Statistics Group forecasts an increase in healthcare spending in the United States to 20 percent of the gross national product by 2015. This growth, alongside other factors, will drive higher demand for medical technologies and medical electronics.
