Where’s the money in the wearables market? One more report points again to the health and medical segments. A new report from ABI Research predicts that about 100 million wearable remote patient monitoring (RPM) devices will ship over the next five years. The forecast appears as part of the firm’s new report on “The Remote Patient Management Revolution: Wearable Devices and Open Management Platforms.”
Some of the applications for wireless RPM devices include pulse oximeters, blood pressure cuffs, ECG monitors, blood sugar levels, and breathing rate. The driving forces behind this rapid growth are improved patient healthcare and reduced costs. One of the most important steps to speed adoption will be the ability to collect data from devices made by different manufacturers, and securely make this available to all stakeholders: patients, family members and caregivers, healthcare professionals, and insurance companies.
According to Jonathan Collins, ABI Research analyst, “data has traditionally resided in silos belonging to specific applications delivered primarily by device vendors themselves. New cloud platforms capable of collecting data from a range of vendor devices and sharing it securely with a range of related parties including patients, healthcare providers, and payers will drive adoption and bring more connected devices to market.”
