According to a research report from Kalorama Information the market for remote and wireless patient monitoring is set to grow about 26 percent annually through 2014.

“With increased waiting times at doctors’ offices, some employees may have to take a sick or personal day to see the physician for what might be a routine visit and technology might help avoid that scenario,” Kalorama stated in its release. Kalorama said these systems will grow by over $6 billion this year.

Last summer Kalorama released a report on the market for handheld devices in healthcare, which included mobile phones, monitoring devices and everything in between: By the end of 2010, Kalorama expected the total market for handheld devices in healthcare to reach $8.8 billion. Sales for patient monitoring tools topped $5.3 billion in 2009, according to the company, while "administrative devices" like PDAs, smartphones, tablet PCs and handheld scanners generated about $3 billion in sales during 2009.

According to Kalorama 2010 report: “Patient monitoring devices account for the largest share of sales in the handheld market, largely due to the range of products available, the number of conditions requiring monitoring, and increasing demand for essential monitoring products in portable sizes, such as ultrasound and ECG."

In December Berg Insight released a similar market size estimation for home health monitoring of “welfare diseases,” which it pegged at about $10 billion in 2010. Home health is a smaller subset of remote patient monitoring, since some monitoring could take place outside of the patient's home under Kalorama's definition. Berg's market estimate largely takes into account remote monitoring services for diabetes, cardiac arrhythmia, sleep apnea, asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). While home health monitoring is a smaller subset, interesting to note that Berg's market size was larger than Kalorama's.

Last year also saw another billion dollar estimate: By the year 2014 public and private healthcare providers may save between $1.96 billion and $5.83 billion in healthcare costs thanks to remote patient monitoring over cellular networks, according to a report from Juniper Research.

If nothing else the consensus is on "billions."

More from Kalorama's report over at CMIO