Scandinavian countries could save between EUR 1.25 billion and EUR 2.4 billion annually through the introduction of remote monitoring for the elderly, says a study by the Boston Consulting Group into the global prospects for mobie health which was commissioned by Norwegian operator Telenor. The study says the potential savings from remote monitoring vary between Denmark (EUR 1.25 billion), Norway (EUR 1.5 billion) and Sweden (EUR 2.4 billion). Telenor has previously released a few highlights from this study at this year’s Mobile World Congress but this is the first publication of the full version of the report. Read it here.

BCG looks at the prospects for mobile health across the markets where Telenor has a presence. There are broken into three groups,or clusters as the consultancy terms them. The first cluster includes Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro. The second cluster covers Thailand, Malaysia and Russia. Bangladesh, Pakistan and India are in the third cluster.

Countries in the second cluster could benefit from less occupancy of hospital beds as a result of mhealth, says the study. Remote treatment has the potential to reduce hospitalisation due to COPD, a common lung disease, in Russia (500,000 nights annually), Thailand (350,00 nights annually) and Malaysia (200,000-300,000 nights annually).

There are benefits for the third cluster too says the study. Remote diagnostics can reduce hospital admissions in these countries, it says. Bangladesh and Pakistan could reduce their hospital costs by US$1 billion annually while India’s savings on its hospitals could be as high as US$7 billion annually.

The projections of potential cost savings by BCG for the three clusters appear to have been based partly at least on the mhealth trials that have taken place around the world.

The consultancy does admit there are some barriers to mhealth’s progress. It talks about “split incentives and divided business models” that could serve as a barrier to mobile technology becoming integrated into healthcare.

The study also includes a table to show the incentives that various parties may have for not introducing mobile health: Healthcare professional (“Averse to new technology and work processes) or government agency (“Fragmented organisational structure leading to no one owning the problem”).  However the study concludes tthe telecoms sector has a  key role in pulling together mhealth’s diverse stakeholders.