Diagnostics at Home

Diagnostic and monitoring device is one of the biggest product segments of global home healthcare market with highest share. Home diagnostics is gaining recognition as gadgets drives down the cost and provides a reliable degree of accuracy. With increasing health awareness among people, increase in number of young and geriatric people diagnosed with chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiac disorders and respiratory diseases,the demand for home diagnostics is expected to grow even more in the next few years.

People buy their at-home diagnostic tests and health-monitoring devices at pharmacies or online. At home diagnostic products include blood pressure monitors; blood c holesterollevel monitors; heart-rate monitors; blood glucose monitors, A 1 C test kits, and monitoring supplies (including lancets and test strips); home pregnancy and ovulation tests; and kits that require a blood or other tissue sample to be sent out for testing, such as test kits for blood cholesterol levels, HIV, hepatitis C, and DNA tests that can be used to prove paternity. The latest to be added in this category is at-home cancer testing device

for screening lung, breast and prostate cancer. Some of the key industry participants in global home diagnostic market includes 3M Health Care, Bayer AG, Abbott Laboratories, Phillips Healthcare, Cardinal Health, Inc., GE Healthcare, Gentiva Health Services, Inc., Johnson & Johnson Services, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Medtronic, Inc., Omron

Healthcare, Inc. and Invacare Corporation among others.

Currently the largest market for home tests is blood glucose monitoring (BGM). When tracing the history of home testing it can be seen that some of the technology developments, from initial urine dipsticks to finger-stick testing, are where smaller and smaller amounts of sample are now required. Most home diagnostic systems provide a single test result; but in future a panel of tests might be more applicable and that the

output of these results would need to be displayed in an easy to understand manner for the home user.

Alongside the technology improvements, more recently greater focus is seen on providing better data for the patient to manage their disease. Devices that now provide the calculation of bolus amounts of insulin that the patient should take based on their carbohydrate intake and blood glucose are becoming available. Easier analysis of the results of testing and sharing of that data have become more commonplace.