Frost & Sullivan announced in a press release new analysis, COVID-19 Pandemic Ignites Enthusiasm for Virtual Care, which found that virtual care is the next growth opportunity across the healthcare space.
Although at a nascent stage, the United States’ virtual care market is expected to achieve significant growth by 2025, reflected in an astounding compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.4 percent.
“The largest component of the virtual care market involves the use of telehealth and telemedicine. However, the concept of virtual care presents opportunities that extend beyond telehealth and telemedicine and can improve the management of patients across all healthcare segments,” said Victor Camlek, Healthcare & Life Sciences Research Manager at Frost & Sullivan. “Virtual care platforms can provide an improved level of efficiency in workflow processes such as test scheduling, results notification, and follow-up patient care management that will be required in the next generation of healthcare well beyond the pandemic.”
Camlek added: “This view of full-scale virtual care offers the ability to manage the clinical and operational processes that include electronic health records (EHRs), healthcare workflow, patient relationship management, and many basic functions such as billing and scheduling. Further, it provides a strong return on investment (ROI) for providers and patients based on its ability to save time and utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to enable innovative systems far beyond the simple functions that can be applied today.”
The virtual care space presents tremendous growth prospects for its market participants, including:
· Expanded ways to utilize patient-generated health data: This new volume of valuable data will be accompanied by advances in data analytics, new solutions for clinical decision support, and the evolving use case for population health management (PHM).
· The use of technology to manage the increasing prevalence of behavioral health issues that have been reported since the onset of the global pandemic: Virtual care’s benefits are visible as beleaguered mental health professionals seek to remotely manage pandemic-related spikes in conditions such as depression, stress, substance abuse, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and suicidal thoughts.
· Opportunities to ensure dynamic security standards across all elements of virtual care platforms: They must be designed to instill confidence among healthcare stakeholders that the threat to the anticipated surge in online health data can be protected.
· Creation of an end-to-end virtual care solution that fulfills and exceeds the essential capabilities and components of traditional in-person healthcare services: There is a need to increase knowledge among all healthcare stakeholders about the functionality and workflow-related potential of virtual care.
· Development of a virtual care implementation strategy defining the program and benefits offered: Healthcare providers of virtual care solutions must revitalize their infrastructure to manage the supply chain and logistics for their customers with 24/7 support to enable a complete and rewarding virtual care experience.
COVID-19 Pandemic Ignites Enthusiasm for Virtual Care is the latest addition to Frost & Sullivan’s Healthcare research and analyses available through the Frost & Sullivan Leadership Council, which helps organizations identify a continuous flow of growth opportunities to succeed in an unpredictable future.