Continuous Personal Healthcare
Wearables, home measurements, longitudinal health records and clinician-supervised remote monitoring make healthcare more continuous.
Service models: monitoring, diagnostics, interpretation and follow-up
Planning baselineUS$15TEstimated annual conventional healthcare expenditure in 2031
Exploratory expanded rangeUS$16–20TPotential broader healthcare-related economy; scenario, not forecast
New expressions12Emerging categories that could create demand or extend access
The central thesis
From treating illness to supporting health throughout life.
Healthcare expenditure has traditionally been driven by illness, injury, pregnancy, ageing and the management of diagnosed conditions. New models create opportunities for people to engage with health services before illness, between clinical encounters, and throughout later life.
An essential accounting distinction: some services contribute to official national health expenditure. Others—such as fitness, wellness, age-friendly housing or consumer health technology—may belong to a broader health economy. These markets must not be added together without adjusting for overlaps, substitution and double-counting.
01 / Market expansion
Twelve emerging expressions of healthcare.
Each represents either new healthcare demand, expanded access to existing care, or a different way to deliver—and sometimes replace—traditional services.
Longevity and Healthspan Medicine
Evidence-based services address mobility, cognition, metabolic health, healthy ageing and sustained independence.
Service models: preventive care, geriatric assessments and rehabilitation
Predictive and Precision Healthcare
Clinically validated genomic, molecular and longitudinal risk information may enable better targeted care.
Service models: counseling, targeted screening and personalized treatment
Hospital-at-Home
Appropriate clinical services move into homes through connected devices, care teams and integrated escalation pathways.
Service models: home acute care, infusions and recovery monitoring
Ageing and Independent Living
Growing longevity creates demand for assistance with physical function, memory, daily living and long-term care.
Service models: dementia care, nursing, rehabilitation and assisted living
Consumer-Directed Healthcare
Transparent prices, direct provider choice and portable personal health information support informed healthcare purchasing.
Service models: direct pay, memberships, second opinions and diagnostics
Advanced Therapeutics
Gene, cell and targeted biological therapies may open care pathways for conditions with limited treatment options.
Service models: specialized therapy, monitoring and outcomes contracts
Mental and Cognitive Health
Broader access to mental healthcare and cognitive support may address longstanding underdiagnosis and unmet need.
Service models: counseling, psychiatric care and rehabilitation
Metabolic Health and Nutrition
Integrated obesity, diabetes and cardiometabolic care combines evidence-based medicines with ongoing clinical support.
Service models: metabolic treatment, nutrition and longitudinal monitoring
Reproductive and Life-Stage Care
Personalized services address fertility, maternal health, postpartum care and menopause across the life course.
Service models: reproductive care, screening and maternal monitoring
Healthcare for Underserved Populations
Lower-cost delivery models and community networks could serve people previously excluded by price, geography or capacity.
Service models: primary care, essential diagnostics and medicine access
Community and Environmental Health
Care extends into workplaces, education, homes and communities, responding to preventive and environmental risks.
Service models: occupational health, heat resilience and community care
02 / Economic scenarios
What could global healthcare-related spending reach?
The conventional US$15 trillion planning baseline is compared against three illustrative expanded-economy scenarios. The increments are hypothetical net additions—not independently forecast category totals.
2031 annual spend scenarios
Nominal US dollars, trillions. Bars scale to US$20T.
$15T
$16T
$18T
$20T
Conventional baselineIllustrative incremental health economy
| Scenario | Annual spend | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|
| Baseline | US$15T | Existing healthcare trend |
| Moderate | US$16T | Gradual adoption of added services |
| Accelerated | US$18T | Broader access, prevention, home care and longevity |
| Transformative | US$20T | Extensive consumer participation and broader health categories |
US$18–20T is an ambitious exploratory case, not an official forecast. Some additional spending may fall outside the System of Health Accounts definition of current health expenditure. Better technology may also reduce total expenditure through substitution and productivity gains.
03 / Structural transition
From the patient to the person.
The deeper opportunity is not merely selling more treatment. It is supporting appropriate, affordable healthcare engagement across a person's lifetime.
Patient-centric, episodic
Illness or symptoms often trigger clinical engagement.
- Diagnosis and treatment
- Provider-centered records
- Visits tied to clinical episodes
- Often reactive spending
Person-centric, lifelong
Needs, preferences, risk and medical necessity shape ongoing participation.
- Prevention, care and recovery
- Portable, person-controlled information
- Direct service selection and continuity
- Engagement beyond illness alone
Not every new test or intervention creates health value. Clinical effectiveness, necessity, affordability and equity should govern adoption.
04 / MEDTIUM
Three distinct economic opportunities.
MEDTIUM can expand participation without confusing healthcare expenditure facilitated, new demand enabled and platform revenue earned.
01 / EXISTING SPEND
Facilitate healthcare expenditure
Make established health, business and finance interactions more accessible, interoperable and efficient.
Measure: facilitated healthcare transaction volume, net revenue and outcomes.
02 / UNMET DEMAND
Enable newly accessible care
Help convert otherwise unaffordable or unavailable healthcare needs into clinically appropriate delivered services.
Measure: first-time access, incremental care and patient value.
03 / BROADER ECONOMY
Connect lifelong health services
Link appropriate preventive, ageing, wellness and independence services without conflating them with conventional medical spending.
Measure: category-specific transactions and additional health value.
Revenue discipline: If MEDTIUM facilitated 1% of a US$15T global healthcare expenditure baseline, that would equal US$150B in facilitated spending. At a hypothetical effective 2.8% platform fee, gross platform revenue would be US$4.2B before discounts, deductions and operating costs. These are arithmetic illustrations—not projected penetration or revenues.
05 / An enabling infrastructure category
Personal Health Infrastructure as a Service.
PHIaaS is a proposed service category in which the individual has a lifelong, person-controlled health information environment connecting care providers, diagnostics, pharmacies, AI assistance and consent-governed services.
PERSONCONTROL
ProvidersDiagnosticsAI servicesPayors06 / Sources and methodology
Reading this outlook responsibly.
The figures presented here are exploratory scenario assumptions, not estimates derived from a full bottom-up expenditure model. Official comparisons should be aligned to each source's definitions, currency year and reporting conventions.
- World Health Organization — Global Health Expenditure Database. Primary reference for internationally comparable health spending.
- World Health Organization — Ageing and health. Demographic context for healthy ageing and long-term care.
- OECD — Health spending. Context for expenditure classification and health system economics.
- McKinsey — Global wellness market trends. Illustrates broader wellness demand, which should not be treated as identical to health expenditure.
Methodological caution. The US$15T 2031 planning baseline and US$16–20T expanded-economy scenarios are strategic illustrations. They are not WHO, OECD or McKinsey forecasts for 2031. Category definitions overlap; growth may reflect price inflation, utilization or reclassification rather than improved health. No investment, clinical or policy decision should rely on these numbers without updated country-level validation and a bottom-up model.