Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) grows to a whooping €19.4 billion by 2018

Nearly 3 million people all over the world are using remote patient monitoring solutions and devices by the end of 2013, which includes cardiac-rhythm management (CRM), electrocardiography, blood glucose monitors and other medical devices that can be remotely monitored by doctors and medical practitioners. This report from Berg Insight, does not include personal health trackers and fitness tracking devices and wearables that are all over the electronic consumer market. Before 2013 ended, about 66% of all patients are using implantable CRM devices. Medical devices such as sleep therapy and telehealth machines take the second and third largest group of these kinds of devices, raising a .34 and .54 million connections, while the rest of the segments like the glucose level, ECG, medication adherence and others, took .1 million total connections.

The dedicated M2M and Internet of Things market research firm predicted that the remote patient monitoring market will grow at a CAGR of 44.4% to a total of nearly 19.1 million patients globally. This trend can positively still change as more home-connected and remote monitoring devices are being employed and made available to consumers.

"The growth in the remote patient monitoring market is today centered on very specific market verticals and regions. Most of the market growth in the sleep therapy segment has for instance occurred in the US and France, where frequent compliance audits are becoming more common" said Berg Insight Senior Analyst, Lars Kurkinen.
The firm, however, noted that CRM will only account for 21% of all connections generated from remote patient monitoring solutions by the year 2018. It may still be the largest segment in the market but the use of mobile connectivity and M2M communication will help other segments grow faster in adoption. Today, most of the medical connected devices today still rely on PSTN and LAN transmissions. However, Berg Insight forecasts that this may change ultimately as cellular connectivity and M2M communication starts to power the most common technological releases as of late.

Health hubs have also began embracing BYOD (bring your own device) concept, where patients can utilize their own device and care providers would just need to provide tablets or smartphones for easy remote patient monitoring and consistency. At the moment, there are some issues with inter-connectivity as far as these devices are concerned. However, several mHealth platforms are emerging to address this issue. Apple's HealthKit and 2net Mobile from Qualcomm Life are two of the most promising solutions that can bring BYOD in health hubs as a more favored option for specific patient groups like diabetic an asthmatic patients. Although technology evolves relatively fast, these new technology-enabled patient care framework appeals to most modern patients , influencing their preferences in taking take of their health.