The 'Internet of Health Things' To Be Worth $163 billion By 2020

In comparison to the struggles the retail space has been having with the blurred lines between digital and physical, the healthcare sector appears to be the throes of a wide embrace of technologies that will alter the way doctors, pharmacies, insurers, and patients connect with each other. The alignment of the Internet of Things -- or in the case of a specific business segment identified by Accenture as the "Internet of Health Things" -- with artificial intelligence that powers "smart search" results provided by Amazon's Alexa or IBM's Watson is already altering the priorities of all facets of the health & wellness industry. To put a dollar figure on what all this change amounts to, Accenture cites an eMarketer's forecast saying the value of IoHT will reach $163 billion by 2020, with a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 38.1 percent between 2015 and 2020. And within the the next five years the healthcare sector is projected to be "number one" in the top 10 industries for Internet of Things app development. As a separate Accenture report notes, the insurance industry is primed for AI.