Mobile data services for health care will grow to $7.7 billion worldwide by 2014, according to a new report from ABI Research. Specifically, the estimate includes cellular data services and not WiFi. The healthcare industry will account for 10 percent of all global mobile data revenue by 2014. Accessing mobile data services, text messaging and mobile email are the key applications driving healthcare mobile spending, according to the report.

"Healthcare also employs many people and is rapidly mobilizing," ABI's enterprise practice director Dan Shey said in a statement. "It will experience one of highest growth rates in mobile data services revenue.”

Earlier this summer, ABI Research reported that the healthcare industry's adoption of WiFi had increased 60 percent year-over-year largely for WLAN and WiFi-enabled real time location services (RTLS) deployments.

"Health care professionals now have apps on their devices that allow access to such things as an office dashboard for schedules, patient data, including radiograph information, and even individual applications like a medication reference app," Shey told eWEEK in a recent interview.

For more on ABI's report, read the full release here