Has Motorola Acquisition Given Google Another Chance to Hit Healthcare Market?

Google, which had to shut down its personal health record platform -- Google Health -- due to lack of consumer interest, with the acquisition of Motorola Mobility, might once again start a lucrative healthcare wireless market.

With access to Motorola’s healthcare clients that already use the products like the MC55A0-HC and the MC75A0-HC, which are handheld devices that Motorola designed specifically for the use of doctors, nurses and other employees in the healthcare sector, Google can crack at the healthcare market.

ABI Research cited Motorola as one of the three leading Wi-Fi infrastructure vendors based on its potential for Wi-Fi in healthcare. The research firm also suggested that the market for Wi-Fi access point hardware, software and services will increase to 1.3 bn by 2016.

Mobility and connectivity are driving new technology adoption in healthcare both in professional and in remote and home care locations, Jonathan Collins, ABI Research's principal analyst covering wireless healthcare and M2M, told InformationWeek Healthcare.

A Google/Motorola combination brings together two key gateway devices -- home set top boxes and mobile handsets -- necessary for an emerging generation of wearable sensors. In addition, there is the ability to drive application and connectivity support in handsets through Android that can support and integrate wearable wireless sensor monitoring and related online applications.

Collins said, Google might face some headwinds to hit the market because of healthcare industry’s low awareness of the potential of new devices and application. Vendors could face problem in releasing products into a highly regulated market where use cases and regulations often can vary from country to country.