In this first article we highlight two issues that have come to the fore over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic: crises in the health system, and opportunities that have arisen in the midst of the turbulence.

LESSON 1: Focusing on Preventive Diagnosis and a Primary Care Strategy to Have a Robust Healthcare System in the Long Term

The onset of the pandemic has shown us that our health systems were not ready to face a health crisis. The countries with most development or a greater capacity to respond—economically or technologically—managed to recover relatively quickly, but even so, they have reconsidered their health care and investment strategies, focusing heavily on developing primary-care systems with prevention and awareness-raising campaigns, replanning the health system, both public and private, and emphasizing preventive diagnosis. Latin America has suffered heavy human and economic losses through a lack of investment, which has been plain to see, and so this is now part of the agenda for governments and even private businesses.

In this regard, through HospiScope, GHI has come up with some very interesting data, confirming that in Latin America the total number of beds grew by 2.2% a year in 2020 and 2021, to reach nearly 1M beds in the region. Beds for outpatient use, on the other hand, have seen annual growth of 5.7% in 2020 and 2021, and beds for use in intensive care have grown by 16.4% annually in 2020 and 2021, to reach 90,000 beds at regional level. With respect to surgery beds, annual growth in 2020 and 2021 was 3.7%.

In addition, with regard to diagnostic apparatus, both in primary diagnosis and advanced-imaging diagnosis, the annual growth in 2020 and 2021 looks like this:

Our data show that the investment was in those diagnostic-imaging apparatus that are much more precise and give more specific results when it comes to determining pathologies. This is a sign of the way the industry has changed, and where the opportunities for growth and investment lie. We might say, then, that although primary diagnosis is a key strategy for addressing the population’s health, hospitals and clinics have invested more in high-tech, high-cost, precision apparatus. The growth of ventilators and patient monitoring is linked directly to needs resulting from COVID.

Preventive diagnosis has been shown to help better work with pathologies requiring lengthy treatments, thereby minimizing emergency procedures. This helps focus efforts in situations of crisis, as the chronic side of the illness is relatively controlled. In parallel, the strategy looks to primary care. We know that the initial moments of care are vital to preventing further complications. This is why it is indispensable to have a robust system for this kind of treatment, as it prevents preexisting illnesses from worsening. Above all, it helps reduce costs and make the system more efficient. And in this respect, the pandemic has taught us an important lesson and has left us with a tremendous opportunity to develop telehealth (TH) as a primary-care tool with enormous reach. GHI has produced extremely interesting data about the adoption of this system in second- and third-level centers. At the end of 2021, 15% of hospitals in the region had TH programs; 9% were “hubs” (hospitals where the experts are), while 6% were “spokes” (where the patients are), and just 1% offer international TH.  As you can see, the opportunity is still considerably large.

To conclude, we might say that the biggest lessons in this respect have been the need to:

• Fortify primary health care through by shoring up care strategies like telehealth, reaching more people, more quickly and efficiently.
  
• Equip hospitals and clinics with beds for different types of care (intensive, intermediate, and outpatient care) by establishing priorities in care based on pathologies and staging.
  
• Enhance care centers with equipment that facilitates quick and precise diagnosis, working almost exclusively with specialist-equipment diagnosis and/or treatment.
  
• Plan strategies for purchasing, equipment procurement, and investment in technology, to take advantage of opportunities that the pandemic has opened up, and advances in virtual care.

LESSON 2: Approaching the Crisis as a Moment of Opportunity

The crisis generated as a consequence of the Pandemic has brought opportunities for companies whose products were listed as first-necessity, or those that were able to launch onto the market products needed to combat the Pandemic. The most emblematic example of this is the PCR test in its various models: rapid test, self-test, and laboratory test being the among the most widely known.

However, in most cases the medical-device industry has seen a considerable drop in sales of its products and services, due to the low demand for so-called elective procedures, and it has led them to rethink a large part of their business. In this respect, the rupture has occurred not only in the ways of doing business—both in the strategy and in the sales of each market—but above all in pricing.

To remain competitive, many companies have reconsidered their pricing strategy based on direct sales, which has posed a challenge to the role of distributors—somewhat of an adjustment variable for most businesses finding themselves in an economic crunch. Distributors are key, and they play a very important role for companies that need to develop a market, or launch a product in many places at the same time, especially when the company has no local presence in markets spanning large expanses of territory. But they are also the adjustment variable in a crisis. This is nothing new, and it is often the case that the relationship with them is like a pendulum.

During the Pandemic, companies have focused on their larger clients, dropping business that takes considerable effort to develop. This has led to a better knowledge of the needs of important clients, and to improved revenues in the midst of the crisis. The key lies in understanding that critical moments drive us to create changes. In this case, there will be better opportunities for those who achieve the best balance to maintain strong relationships with direct clients, that are sustainable over time, and grow with minimal in-house efforts by working collaboratively with distributors who are aligned with the ways in which each company works.

But the question is, have we taken full advantage of the opportunities that have arisen? Have we been able to transform our businesses by leveraging the technological advances that have come about through the digitalization the world has experienced, particularly between March and October of 2020? Our next article on Lessons Learned from the Pandemic will include a look inside this topic.

At GHI, we always approach subjects from a constructive angle in an attempt to generate productive debate. Find out more about our solutions here.

You can also contact us directly if you are interested in exploring the possibility of a personalized market study to help your business understand the market better, whether this is on a general level or in a key segment of a specific country.

However, there is generally a significant size difference between public and private hospitals in Latin America, and that is likely to be reflected in the base installed equipment counts covered by HospiRank. As such, GHI decided to create a ranking solely for private hospitals in Latin America, covering 4 key categories:

• Best Equipped for Hosting Patients
• Highest Count of Basic Surgical Equipment
• Best-Equipped Hospitals for Advanced Diagnostic Imaging
• Best-Equipped Hospitals for High-Risk Patients

Towards the end of Q4 2021, GHI shared the results of its ranking of LatAm private hospitals via a webinar organized in partnership with El Hospital, the leading hospital and healthcare industry magazine in Latin America.

Below you can view the webinar, which was held only in Spanish.

If you’d like to learn more about the ranking and obtain a copy, please click here.

If you’d like to read further about El Hospital’s article on the ranking, which includes profiles of top private hospitals in Latin America, please click here.

Next Steps

Contact us if you’d like to obtain a deeper level of market intelligence for LatAm’s private hospitals. Most of the major private hospitals in Latin America—in countries like Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, among others—can be found in our HospiScope database, which you can subscribe to and use for sales planning, marketing initiatives, crafting strategy and more, all based on hard data that is constantly updated by GHI’s large research team.

Beyond HospiScope, GHI’s team can create a custom market research study for you on LatAm private hospitals or all of the region’s hospitals. This option will deliver all the strategic data you need to uncover sales opportunities as the LatAm medical equipment market returns to pre-pandemic levels. Other resources that can help you deepen your understanding of the LatAm medical equipment/devices market include SurgiScope, ShareScope and the LatAm Hospital Monitoring Service.

HospiRank focuses on all of the hospitals in the region and is created based on an analysis of public, mixed and private healthcare institutions in Latin America.

However, it’s clear that public hospitals and clinics in Latin America are often much larger than private ones, so it’s challenging to create a ranking that includes representative amounts of all types. Recently, El Hospital, Latin America’s leading publication on hospitals and healthcare, approached GHI to create a ranking for just private hospitals. We used the data from our HospiScope database to create the ranking and shared the results in a webinar that we helped organize in partnership with El Hospital.

As a way to help medical equipment/devices companies, healthcare professionals and others to have a clearer sense of the resources available in LatAm’s private hospitals, we have created this ranking report of the best-equipped private hospitals in Latin America.

Please click here to download the report.

Next Steps

Contact GHI if you are interested in a deeper look at the sales opportunities available in the LatAm medical equipment market. We can provide this through our databases (such as HospiScope and SurgiScope), custom studies (available through InScope) and our LatAm Hospital Monitoring service.

Market intelligence – which allows you to understand acquisition trends, penetration levels and the how Latin America’s healthcare system compares with the world – could make the difference between a 2021 that gains back the ground lost in 2020… or falls short.

To help sales and marketing teams focused on Latin America, here are 10 key stats:

101%
Growth rate for positron emission tomography in Mexican hospitals, 2016-2019

7%
penetration rate of angiography systems in Argentina’s 2000+ hospitals

1,487
Total amount of hospitals in Brazil with 90+ beds

15.8%
growth in fluoroscopy systems in Central American hospitals in 2019

39.8%
The growth in linear accelerators in Colombian hospitals in 2019

47%
growth in gamma cameras in Chilean hospitals, 2016-2019

13
equipment categories grew in Colombian hospitals in 2019, with linear accelerators, MRI machines and mammography systems growing the most

-16.1%
The drop in linear accelerators in Mexican hospitals in 2019, while 15 other categories (from anesthesia machines to positron emission tomography) grew from 0.5% to 20%

9.6% to 45.5%
In Peru, the range of expansion of the top 6 medical equipment types that grew the most in 2019

63%
penetration for telemedicine in Chilean hospitals

Get Deeper Data

Go beyond these 10 figures to obtain 1,490 more key data points by ordering Medical Equipment Market Report Latin America 2020.

This comprehensive report identifies:

• The top 70 hospitals in Latin America in high-technology equipment adoption
• Overall penetration of basic equipment and specialized equipment in all Latin American hospitals
• Penetration of base installed equipment in 7 key Latin American hospital markets
• Total amounts of 19 crucial types of hospital equipment (ventilators, robotic surgery systems, hemodialysis machines, C-arms, patient monitors and more) in all of Latin America
• Average amounts of major hospital equipment types
• Importation growth and contraction trends, 2016-2019
• Healthcare technology penetration levels for top markets

And much more. Click here to view a report sample and table of contents.

As 2020 winds down, make the most of your budget by investing in market intelligence that could help ensure your success in 2021.

It’s crucial to know exactly how to focus the efforts of your sales team. And one of the best ways to do that is to start by seeing what’s selling.

Our HospiScope database tracks the types of medical devices, equipment and consumables that Latin American hospitals buy the most. We have 15 countries in the database right now and expect have 17 countries in the database by the end of this year.

We reviewed the data to identify the medical equipment categories that grew in different countries in Latin America between 2017 and 2018. Here’s a quick look, market by market:

Argentina (Market Size: 2,361 hospitals)

• 4% growth in infusion pumps, 2017-2018
• 5% growth in hemodialysis machines, 2017-2018

Bolivia (Market Size: 214 hospitals)

• 9% growth in C-Arms, 2017-2018
• 5% growth in colposcopes, 2017-2018

Brazil (Market Size: 6,161 hospitals)

• 8% growth in nuclear medicine systems, 2017-2018
• 2% growth in stereotactic mammography machines, 2017-2018

Chile (Market Size: 381 hospitals)

• 6% growth in endoscopy towers, 2017-2018
• 2% growth in X-ray machines, 2017-2018

Colombia (Market Size: 2,623 hospitals)

• 5% growth in endoscopy machines, 2017-2018
• 6% growth in mammography equipment, 2017-2018

Costa Rica (Market Size: 158 hospitals)

• 3% growth in C-arms, 2017-2018
• 7% growth in linear accelerators, 2017-2018

Dominican Republic (Market Size: 864 hospitals)

• 6% growth in ultrasound machines, 2017-2018
• 4% growth in C-arms, 2017-2018

Guatemala (Market Size: 163 hospitals)

• 5% growth in ultrasound machines, 2017-2018
  2.8% growth in X-ray machines, 2017-2018

Mexico (Market Size: 3,344 hospitals)

• 6.2% growth in MRI machines, 2017-2018
  17.7% growth in angiogram systems, 2017-2018

Peru (Market Size: 813 hospitals)

• 1% growth in laparoscopic surgery equipment, 2017-2018
• 4% growth in nuclear medicine systems, 2017-2018

Puerto Rico (Market Size: 67 hospitals)

• 8% growth in echocardiogram machines, 2017-2018
• 6% growth in anesthesia machines, 2017-2018

Next Steps to Sell

Of course, this is just a quick look. Our data shows that many more equipment categories posted growth in 2017-2018 as Latin American hospitals added significant amounts of base installed and capital equipment.

While knowing about these growth categories is helpful, what’s crucial is knowing which specific hospitals in these markets are acquiring this equipment and devices — and who at these hospitals handles the purchasing decisions.

This is where HospiScope can help. Subscribing to this database will uncover the buyers and allow your sales team to identify the hottest prospects for outreach.

Moreover, HospiScope data allows you to conduct sales propension analysis so as to predict which accounts have the best potential in the coming months — or years.

Contact us for a demo of HospiScope so you can see how strategic data will spike your sales of medical equipment and devices in Latin America.