Europe Digital Health Market and Trends 2023

Europe Digital Health Market and Trends 2023

The digital health market is forecasted to grow at a double-digit CAGR between 2022 and 2032, surpassing EUR 900 billion by 2032: new yStats.com report.

Globally, the digital health industry is expected to thrive despite challenges in the adoption of digital health technologies

The report from yStats.com reveals that trends such as telemedicine, connected health, AR/VR, and AI are driving the growth of the digital health market, with a projected double-digit CAGR between 2022 and 2032. Digital health solutions like telemedicine, health & wellness apps, disease management tools, and wearables are gaining popularity among both patients and medical professionals. The UK's National Health Service (NHS) is already utilizing voice-based technology to disseminate health information through websites. While there is increasing demand for digital health technologies, the report notes a decline in total digital health funding between 2021 and 2022 due to investor risk aversion, reduced pandemic-driven growth, inflation, and supply chain disruptions. Concerns over IT/security breaches were also prevalent among two-thirds of surveyed healthcare executives globally in 2022. Surveyed clinicians in Europe faced obstacles such as technology costs, lack of digital health infrastructure, and workforce skills when adopting new digital health technologies in 2022. In Germany, complex healthcare bureaucracy, long approval processes, and lack of market readiness for digital applications were among the top challenges in healthcare system digitalization as of July 2022. Similarly, in Austria, complex IT landscapes and associated interfaces were identified as major obstacles, followed by a lack of knowledge and staff shortages as of October 2022.

While the digital health market is witnessing growth and technological advancements globally, certain digital health tools, such as electronic health records and e-prescriptions, are experiencing slow adoption

The healthcare industry is embracing innovative technologies like AI, telehealth, and telemedicine, which are reshaping the traditional healthcare market. AI, in particular, is expected to empower the healthcare market as stakeholders increasingly turn to its applications. Other digital health tools like telehealth, online appointment booking platforms, wearables, and health apps are also gaining popularity for their convenience and support of advanced techniques like remote patient monitoring. However, the adoption of e-prescriptions and electronic health records remains low across Europe, as stated in the yStats.com report. In Germany, the investment in digital health records decreased from around three-quarters of healthcare leaders in the previous year to nearly half as of March 2022. Furthermore, Germany is expected to have a significant proportion of paper-based prescriptions by 2023, with digital prescriptions accounting for a smaller share. Over half of surveyed doctors in Germany expressed future intentions to use electronic prescriptions, while many cited technical reasons for not using electronic health records. Lack of patient willingness was also mentioned as a barrier to electronic health record adoption. In contrast, approximately three-quarters of doctors in Switzerland claimed to maintain electronic medical records as of January 2022, according to the yStats.com report.