About three million people are expected to be using smartphone-powered remote patient monitoring devices by 2016, according to a report from Juniper Research, FierceMobileHealthcare reports.
The report predicts that the increase will be driven by an expansion of peripheral devices for monitoring patient data -- such as wearable biometric sensors -- as well as more processing power in mobile devices (Jackson, FierceMobileHealthcare, 2/2).
Other Report Predictions
The report also predicts that:
- 44 million mobile health applications will be downloaded this year, and about 142 million will be downloaded in 2016 (Dolan, MobiHealthNews, 2/1);
- Electronic health records will become an important component of mobile health offerings (Pulley, NextGov, 2/3);
- Increased use of smartphones for remote patient monitoring will lower costs by reducing the need for expensive dedicated medical devices (MobiHealthNews, 2/1);
- Further guidance from FDA on the regulation of mobile health apps will help boost usage (FierceMobileHealthcare, 2/2); and
- The greater use of smartphones will increase remote monitoring of chronic diseases such as diabetes and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (NextGov, 2/3).