The personal emergency response systems/services (PERS) market is likely to be the cornerstone of telehealth services in the next 20 years and will be critical to elderly care in an emergency, due to changing demographics. While in the past, the elderly used to live with or nearby their family members, all that has changed with the rising prevalence of nuclear families. Current needs involve providing caregivers with cutting-edge, affordable solutions to maintain an actionable care link with the patients’ families.

The evolving PERS will enable consumers to care for the elderly independently, making it imperative for health care systems to be efficient. This is becoming increasingly feasible due to the rapid proliferation of next-generation infrastructure. Over the last two years, telemedicine providers have launched cellular and satellite-based communications, and the PERS market has started to take a cue from them. New technologies have been the first to fully embrace new communication infrastructure in activity monitoring.

The single largest growth driver in this market has been the surge of revenue from new fall detection technologies. The higher prices of these services and the expanding market base of the elderly have given a huge boost to the market. The PERS market has for years provided health-monitoring services to the elderly, paid for by the consumers directly; this has created an interesting point of reference for the telemedicine market. But market leaders should be aware of issues of maturity and severe sales practices that could affect long-term growth and restrain the market.

“As the market continues to evolve, it will soon offer healthcare preventative systems, which will further enhance the already significant market revenue,” said study author senior research analyst Zachary Bujnoch. “As the PERS market seeks to tap bigger opportunities, it has begun to develop more advanced, tested, and reliable systems that incorporate Web portals or advanced movement detection technologies.”

Frost & Sullivan has found that the PERS market earned revenue of US$963.9 million in 2010, an increase of 15.2% compared to 2009. It is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 10.4% from 2010 to 2017, reaching $1.86 billion in sales by 2017.

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