In the Post-epidemic Era, Where Is the Fulcrum of the Medical Electronics Market?

 

The COVID-19 corona virus epidemic has been tossing for more than half a year, and so far there is no sign of its death. The epidemic situation in many places in the world is still in a stalemate, and other places where epidemic prevention has achieved initial results are afraid to be careless, and are ready to wait for the corona virus virus that may come back in autumn and winter. Although there is no answer to when the epidemic will end, it is certain that the corona virus epidemic has completely activated the medical electronics market.

 

It is generally recognized that the medical electronics market is a tepid and continuous growth "slow cow". Everyone knows that after the outbreak of the corona virus epidemic, the demand for ventilators has surged-in 2019, the global market demand for ventilators is about 77,000, and in April 2020, New York, USA alone will need 33,000 ventilators. The same example is the forehead gun around us. The price soared in the first few months of 2020, but it is still hard to find a "gun".

 

However, for most manufacturers, these "unexpected" orders are not comfortable for earning money, because behind it is the helplessness and disorder of the entire supply chain system, which undoubtedly increases the overall operation Cost will eat away the profit margins of manufacturers. At the same time, this growth is unsustainable, and a cliff-like decline is likely to occur. This kind of shock is undesirable for a normal operating company.

 

Therefore, how to filter out these short-term market fluctuations and see the longer-term development trend of the medical electronics market after the epidemic has become a very meaningful thing. We might as well make some predictions today, and we welcome everyone to discuss together.

 

Medical infrastructure

 

One of the biggest reflections brought to us by the corona virus epidemic is to realize the fragility of our current medical and health system-no matter how glamorous it was before, it will still be stretched in the face of such public health emergencies. This also prompts people to learn from the pain and think about how to strengthen the infrastructure construction in the medical field in the future, so as to plan ahead.

 

The most direct impact of the increase in medical infrastructure should be the increase in the purchase of medical equipment. This driving force comes from government procurement and also comes from the increase in health awareness of ordinary people. For example, the defibrillator in the emergency medical equipment mentioned above, as a cardiac emergency equipment, was previously dispensable in some scenarios, and will gradually become a standard configuration in the future. These new hardware facilities are business opportunities that the future development of medical electronics will rely on.

 

In addition to the purchase and upgrade of hardware equipment, improvements in "software" such as medical resource management are also essential. The opportunity lies in whether we can use technical means to digitize the management of medical resources. For example, the application of RFID tags in the management of surgical equipment can also be extended to the management of a wider range of medical equipment; some people are also thinking about whether NFC tags can be used for the management of key resources such as medicines and vaccines. Collect data and build insights. In the value chain surrounding “data”, there will be “opportunities” from data sensing, transmission, and processing.

 

Change the mode of operation

 

The impact of the corona virus epidemic on the medical and health field is not limited to the one dimension of medical infrastructure. Another more important impact lies in the change of the entire medical and health operation model.

 

Traditional medical and health resources are mostly concentrated in specialized medical institutions such as hospitals and managed and operated by professionals. This model has an obvious limitation, that is, the effective coverage is small. This weakness will be further magnified in the current epidemic situation and the shortage of medical resources.

 

In order to change this status, everyone put their hopes on the construction and operation of a tele-medicine system based on the Internet of Things. The core idea of this new mode of operation is to distribute medical resources closer to the end user (patient) through the Internet of Things technology to achieve wide coverage, timely feedback, and efficient diagnosis and treatment. The same idea also makes normalized health monitoring possible, making people's medical and health strategies from treating disease to disease prevention, and preventing it before it happens.

 

The new mode of operation will also give birth to new products and solutions. More and more portable, consumer-oriented health and medical equipment-such as blood pressure monitors, blood glucose meters, blood oximeters, ECG monitoring equipment, ultrasound scanners, etc. Replace traditional professional medical equipment (or as a supplement) and enter people's lives.

 

The technical challenges brought about by this are also obvious. The "new species" of these medical and health equipment must not only have (quasi) professional performance, but also need to face new challenges such as miniaturization, low cost, and rapid iterative upgrades. . In short, in the process of changing the medical and health model, whoever has the ability to find "pain points" and solve problems will be able to break ground in the new market and thrive.

Expand healthy ecology

 

From the construction of the above-mentioned medical and health infrastructure and the transformation of the operation mode, we should be able to realize that the entire medical and health system will become a basic element supporting future social development.

 

Since it has this kind of "foundation", the ecosystem surrounding it will continue to expand, and even cover areas that were not compatible with medical and health in the past. And it is this new "bounding" that will give many players in the non-medical and health field the opportunity to "cross-border" into the medical and health field.

 

For example, during the corona virus epidemic, masks have become a scarce resource. How to distribute this critical medical resource to people in need in a fair and efficient manner has become a problem that must be solved. For this reason, someone has developed a "real-name mask vending machine", which connects retail vending machines to the customer’s personal medical insurance account. The medical insurance account stipulates a mask purchase quota and purchase records. In this way, the customer can easily purchase the masks in your quota through the vending machine, without having to go around.

I believe that with the improvement of the medical and health system, there will be more and more such cross-borders. This can also be seen as the dividend that the medical and health industry brings to the long-term social and economic development of the future.

 

Now that the epidemic is still far away, we are still far from the so-called "post-epidemic" era, but this does not prevent us from now starting to think about the "fulcrum" of the future health and medical field, making arrangements in advance and getting in place in time. Hope this article can give you some inspiration.