Jennifer Mendoza
Research expert covering health, pharma and medtech
eHealth in Chile - Statistics & Facts
As the nation with the highest GovTech index score in Latin America, Chile has positioned itself as the most mature GovTech ecosystem in the region, and one of the territories with the fastest average fixed broadband internet speeds in the world. In recent years, the expansion of internet and technology usage has contributed to an increase on the country’s level of digitalization. Included within the sectors profiting from this expansion is the health care sector, with the COVID-19 pandemic heightening interest in the ehealth market. The segment, which encompasses a vast range of technologies and services, combines health care with digital solutions that are complementary to traditional care.
A rise on remote consultations
With the COVID-19 outbreak bringing about an array of distancing measures, ehealth remote services have seen an exponential rise in their level of demand and supply. In Chile, the number of users of online remote consultations increased by over 49 percent within the period between 2019 and 2022. During that period, figures went from 278 thousand to 415 thousand users, with general medicine appointments, the most demanded type of private remote medical consultations, accounting for over 30 percent of all sessions in 2020. Along with an increase in the number of users, revenue of the market reached over 40 million U.S. dollars by the end of that period. In 2017, this value amounted to roughly nine million U.S. dollars. This represents an increase of more than 344 percent in half a decade.Meditation apps as favorites
While remote services markets saw an extraordinary growth in recent years, personal solutions also grew in popularity among Chileans. The number of users of the digital fitness and well-being market in Chile nearly tripled in a matter of three years and is estimated to reach close to 62 million users by 2025. The adoption of devices designed for fitness and motion tracking such as smartwatches and smart scales is behind this trend. Along with this development is an increase on use of different apps, with a clear favorite: “meditation apps”, a market that gained over four million users as of 2022.
