Revenues from remote patient monitoring using mobile networks will rise to almost $1.9 billion globally by 2014, according to Juniper Research.

Heart-related monitoring applications in the United States will drive the uptake initially, researchers forecast.

The mHealth report found that mobile healthcare monitoring would demonstrate substantial growth in the United States and other developed markets. However, while mobile monitoring will contribute to healthcare cost savings in developed markets, national wealth and the structure of the healthcare market in a given geographical region will have an important bearing on the extent to which it is rolled out.

"In Africa, the opportunities for mHealth monitoring will be limited, but SMS-based education programs will be rolled out there and these can be of great benefit," said Anthony Cox, senior analyst at Juniper Research. SMS refers to short message service, such as cell phones and text messaging.

Other areas that will contribute to mHealth revenues include fitness and healthcare smartphone applications and eventually advanced apps that link into sensors worn on the body.

Key findings from the mobile healthcare report include:

• The market for health and fitness mobile applications will thrive and eventually spawn a new market for advanced apps that integrate with sensors worn on the body.
• Establishing the correct route to market for those selling mHealth services will be key to their success.
• In the past 18 months there has been a renewed interest in mHealth from operators globally.

The report includes analysis of the current state of play in the mHealth market and contains six-year forecasts for key areas within the mobile health area and associated service revenues. Forecasts include the number of mobile monitoring events, revenues from mobile health monitoring, two scenarios detailing cost savings attributable to mobile health monitoring, the number of health and fitness application downloads and revenues from those downloads.