Other wireless technologies being adopted and deployed in healthcare including cellular M2M and wearable wireless sensors have also seen significant growth over the past 12 months.

Wireless communications continue to be adopted in healthcare applications ranging from Wi-Fi networks to wearable sensors that wirelessly transmit a patient’s condition to monitoring applications.

“Wi-Fi adoption has helped overcome initial concerns about complexity and reliability of wireless within healthcare,” says ABI Research principal analyst Jonathan Collins “The growing number of wireless technologies and wireless applications being developed, piloted and deployed within healthcare further underline the level of interest in using wireless to improve the flexibility and efficiency of healthcare services around the world.”

The technologies tracked by ABI Research’s Wireless Healthcare Research Service include Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, Low-Energy Bluetooth, ZigBee, 802.15.4 and proprietary low power RF offerings across applications such as WLAN, personal monitoring, disease management, assisted living and telepresence.

The market trends for these technologies are documented in “Wireless Healthcare and Fitness Market Data,” a database which tracks adoption of remote patient monitoring, telehealth and telepresence, as well as “body area networks,” voice-over-Wi-Fi and chronic disease management.