The American health care system is a mess, with the United States spending some 9,000 dollars per person per year on health care, far more than many other industrialized nations. Now, technology specialists are working to build advanced health care devices that will greatly aid in providing medical treatment.
You may have heard that American health care is expensive, but just how expensive is it? Consider this, in Australia it costs a little less than 5,500 dollars to receive an Appendectomy. In America? Nearly 14,000 dollars on average and more than 29,000 dollars for the top 25th percentile.
Now, technology may lead to breakthroughs. Connected health care devices will allow people to monitor their health at all times. This is especially important for people suffering from diabetes, obesity, or hypertension.
Such remote devices could allow doctors to treat people from remote hospitals, instantly receive medical records, make more accurate diagnostics, reduce errors, encourage patients to take more responsibility for their health, and numerous other things that could ultimately lower the cost of health care.
And don’t underestimate the size of this market! The mHealth market is expected to reach 23 billion dollars by 2017, and there will be some 170 million pieces of clothing and accessories embedded with monitoring devices.
