A report by research firm Berg Insight says 2.8 million patients around the world were using a home monitoring service with integrated connectivity at the end of 2012, a figure that is set to grow at a steady rate over the next few years.

The figure includes all patients using dedicated devices for remote monitoring, as opposed to those using smartphones, tablets or PC for the same purpose, which are not included in the figure.

Berg predicts home monitoring adoption will grow at a CAGR of 27 percent between 2011 and 2017 to reach 9.4 million connections globally.

Several initiatives will ensure mobile health will have strong growth in 2013 and in following years, says Berg. In the US, the increase in readmission penalties set by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services will push hospitals to adopt telehealth for home monitoring.

In the UK, the NHS has issued a mandate for 100,000 additional patients to be remotely monitored by March 2014. Meanwhile France has issued a new mandate on compliance monitoring that stipulates all new sleep therapy patients must be remotely monitored from 2013 onwards. The result is expected to mean more than 600,000 sleep therapy devices will be in use in 2016.

Interestingly, the research firm says while cardiac rhythm management (CRM) is currently the most important use for connected medical devices but the demand for sleep therapy devices will grow to the point that they will be the most popular by 2017.