Wireless technologies that enable patients, or their caregivers, to monitor their health from the comfort of their homes are poised for significant growth.

ABI Research predicts that there will be 15 million "wireless telehealth" systems in use in North America by 2012. ABI study, "Wireless Telehealth," which was released in late July 2009, describes "wireless telehealth" as the use of sensors that monitor a person's physical condition or surroundings and transmit that data back to remote medical practitioners via cellular networks. Some of these solutions include remote patient monitoring, personal emergency response systems, ambient assisted living, and mobile personal monitoring.

Another ABI Research report, "Wireless Healthcare and Fitness Market Data," predicts that by 2014 the market for wireless telehealth devices will achieve a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 77% and generate global revenues of $950 million.

"Hospitals and other healthcare providers are being economically squeezed," says ABI Research VP Stan Schatt. "The demands on the medical system are exacerbated by the aging of populations in most developed nations. Doctors and hospitals are looking for ways to save money, and wireless patient monitoring has a huge potential to do that, for both in- and out-patients. It's a lot more economical to monitor patients remotely at home then to have them come in personally for checkups that consume time and resources."

However, notes Schatt, future savings require present-day investments, and adding wireless communications to equipment adds cost. "In the future we will see entire cellular networks designed as managed services for handling these machine-to-machine communications. The whole process will be outsourced, and software will monitor the incoming measurements. Medical staff will be alerted when the data indicates their intervention is needed."

The category, also referred to as "mHealth," has major technology players such as Intel among the dozens of companies developing wireless monitoring solutions.

Areas of research
Other investments are also being made. Dartmouth College was given a $3 million grant in early August from the National Science Foundation For Trustworthy Information Systems for Healthcare (TISH).

The research that the Dartmouth project will undertake involves enhancing the collection of data from wearable sensor devices to enable physicians to effectively monitor patients' health with both security and privacy in mind. The team will develop new secure, efficient, and easy-to-use protocols that allow remote health monitoring through mobile phone and wearable wireless medical sensors; design new machine-learning methods for analyzing and summarizing sensor data; seek a deeper understanding of the economics of information security in healthcare; and explore how patients and clinicians trade off usability, security, and privacy.

Meanwhile, patients of cardiologist Dr. Steven Greenberg, at St. Francis Hospital in Roslyn, NY, have already been receiving wireless pacemakers that allow him to monitor their conditions remotes. So far, he's inserted about a dozen of the pacemakers, made by St. Jude Medical, which give him daily updates and alert him to issues such as an irregular heartbeat.

Recent products
Recognizing the potential of this market, developers and healthcare organizations are already jumping into the fray. Among the recent products on the market:

• Several new healthcare-related apps for the Apple iPhone. One is iTriage from Healthagen, which offers an extensive library of medical symptoms to help patients evaluate their own conditions, as well as a national directory of emergency departments, urgent care facilities, clinics and pharmacies. It costs 99 cents to download from the Apple iTunes App Store. Another is MotionPHR, a secure and encrypted personal health records app the enables iPhone users to store and organize their medication, immunization, test results and allergy information. It's available for $19.99 from the iTunes App Store.
• Oxford, U.K.-base t+ Medical offers a blood pressure monitor that doctors to monitor patients via mobile phone or Internet. It's already in use at the Stroke Prevention Research Unit at John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford.
• Evaware Ltd., based in the Isle Of Man, Great Britain, is offering integrated telehealth monitoring functionality on devices such as BlackBerrys and mobile phones as well as its own proprietary WiFi-enabled Telehealth Monitor device. Its Project e-Vita electronic patient record system enables peripheral devices such as blood pressure meters and scales to be interchangeable among the devices.
• San Jose, CA-based A&D Medical is offering Bluetooth-based blood pressure monitor and weight scale certified for use in the Continua Healthcare Alliance ecosystem, which emphasizes interoperability among wireless healthcare solutions.
• The Healthsense eNeighbor WiFi-based remote monitoring solution is designed to help families caring for loved ones with Alzheimer's and dementia. Developed with grants from the National Institutes of Aging (NIA) and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the eNeighbor system is built around a set of battery-operated Wi-Fi sensors placed in private homes or senior living residences to monitor residents' daily living activities and wellness. These sensors include pressure sensors in beds to detect when a resident gets in or out of bed; motion detectors on walls to detect movement or inactivity; toilet sensors to monitor toilet usage; contact sensors on kitchen cupboards and refrigerator doors to monitor whether the resident is eating regularly; and door sensors that alert when the resident tries to leave the residence or enter potentially hazardous areas, such as stairways. eNeighbor's "smart" operating system uses algorithms to analyze the sensor data and determine whether the resident requires assistance. The system automatically issues assistive prompts or alerts via any phone when the data indicate help is needed. Information and reports can also be accessed from a secure web portal.