According to a recent report by international growth partnership company Frost and Sullivan, Western Europe’s medical device market is on track to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic by 2023.

The report, titled ‘Impact of COVID-19 on Elective Procedures in Western Europe, 2020–2023’, projects that the market for selective medical devices for elective procedures will reach $16.8 billion (€13.76B) by 2023. according to an aspirational compound annual growth rate of 29.2%.

WHY IT MATTERS

Because of COVID-19, there was a 45.5% decline in the selective medical devices market for elective procedures from the pre-COVID projections for 2020. However, the restrictions and challenges raised by the pandemic have forced medical device manufacturers to think in new ways, creating growth opportunities in the sector.

“The pandemic has led to a new wave of competition from start-ups and digital business models that challenge the standing conventions of the past, compelling established industries to re-think their competitive stance,” author of the report Bejoy Daniel told MobiHealthNews.

These growth opportunities include:

• Connectivity-focused and interoperable solutions to enable agile healthcare
• Data-driven automated training for precision surgery
• Continued increase in home healthcare services
• Collaboration and move toward new-age technologies such as 3D printing
• Compatibility of healthcare services through open architecture

These changes are expected to affect cardiovascular, orthopaedic and robot-assisted surgical devices in particular. Minimally-invasive and robotic procedures are expected to effectively relieve the backlog of procedures and virtual- and mixed-reality technologies will be used for remote training.

Daniel continued: “Managed care providers will take on more financial accountability for patient outcomes as they have determined to have more control of the entire delivery system. Greater shift of cost from payers to providers have led providers to focus on optimising workflows, decrease costs, structure value-based procurement with suppliers and shared savings partnerships with payers.”

Daniel concluded: “Hospitals will be looking at efficiency solutions and hence the healthcare systems will aim to become more efficient both clinically and operationally to ensure they address the surgery backlogs.”

THE LARGER TREND

Some of these changes can already be seen in action. For instance in the UK, London’s Royal Free Hospital has introduced Abbott Ultreon 1.0, AI software that helps guide cardiologists through coronary stenting procedures.

There is also a push towards a more integrated health system in the UK with the introduction of the Health and Care Bill. The importance of digitally-connected integrated care systems and initiatives was a key topic at #HIMSS21Europe, accessible here.

Frost and Sullivan recently released two separate studies: one on the global femtech market and another on the effect of COVID-19 on the European telehealth market.