Nurse Call Utilization On the Rise
While 2020 was a tumultuous year for the healthcare industry, the nurse call systems market experienced accelerated growth. With a market size well over $1.7 billion in 2020, the industry is expected to grow $3.4 billion by 2027.
The unprecedented reliance on nurse call systems during the height of the Covid-19 pandemic has played a dramatic role in the current increase in utilization of this healthcare technology. However, there are a number of additional contributing factors to this accelerated market growth.
Lack of staff resources
As demand for nurses continues to be a major source of stress for many healthcare facilities, nurse call systems become a very critical component of patient care. In 2020 alone, the demand for nurses increased by 26%, with the sudden influx in patients making it difficult for the limited number of healthcare providers to properly care for each patient. Now, amidst healthcare worker burnout and hospital vaccine mandates, nurse shortages continue to be a major dilemma for healthcare facilities who are becoming increasingly more reliant on patient monitoring technologies to make up for limited nursing staff.
Increase in geriatric population
As the older population increases, so does the demand for geriatric medical care. According to a 2021 report published by Global Market Insights, the risk of developing cerebrovascular and neurodegenerative disease increases with age. With the elderly population in North America expected to nearly double in size from 2012 to 2050, healthcare facilities will need to rely on accurate technologies that reduce the need for in-person staff presence to cope with the influx of patients. Fortunately, nurse call systems provide a patient-friendly emergency notification solution that replaces the need for live patient monitoring. This allows healthcare facilities to reduce the number of nurses necessary per patient and make better use of the time of their healthcare providers, leading to more optimized workflows within the healthcare facility. This becomes especially important as healthcare facilities navigate this upcoming demand for gertiatric care with the post-Covid shortage of healthcare providers.
Increased interest in wireless communications
As healthcare providers become more reliant on healthcare technologies amidst a worker shortage and steady increase in the geriatric population, the role of wireless communications becomes more critical than ever. Wired communications have traditionally proven to be more popular within healthcare facilities due to their more consistent security and more reliable network connections. However, with 5G networks set to replace 3G and even 4G in the near future, wireless communications are expected to bypass their wired counterparts and wireless communications within the nurse call market are set to rise by 11.4% by 2027. Healthcare providers are able to utilize these swift communication platforms to more quickly diagnose patient conditions and enact the proper response protocols to treat these conditions. In the healthcare industry, the ability to quickly diagnose and treat can mean the difference between life and death, so even the slightest improvement in communications can drastically change patient outcomes.
While the Covid-19 pandemic spurred the reliance on nurse call systems, a mix of industry and demographic trends are steadily increasing the importance of nurse call systems and will continue to do so for years to come.
For more information on how to implement the latest nurse call systems into your healthcare facility, contact Lynnetta Cleary at LCleary@communication-co.com to learn more.