"While the mHealth market presents significant growth opportunities, when taking into account device, software, connectivity and overall service revenue streams, the market and ecosystem are fragmented, creating challenges for any single player to address the full breadth of opportunities," according to a new report from CSMG called "mHealth: Taking the Pulse."

CSMG estimated that the mHealth market had $1.5 billion in revenue for 2009, but the firm included "fixed telemedicine solutions" within that figure. CSMG also projects that by 2014 the market for mHealth will top $4.6 billion. CSMG believes mHealth will grow at a 25 percent compount annual growth rate over the next five years, but if certain health care reforms like pay-for-performance become standard then mHealth adoption could accelerate beyond that.

CSMG believes that there are four key drivers for mHealth:

1.) Mobile/connected device technology innovation drives near-to-mid-term growth.
2.) The appeal of mHealth will overcome short-term barriers on consumer concerns about the quality of mHealth solutions.
3.) Health care-specific technology developments like EMRs will remove barriers to mHealth adoption.
4.) Broader health care industry reform will be required to reach the full market potential.

CSMG surveyed various wireless service providers, health care software and hardware specialists, insurance providers, hospital systems and physician practices.

Here's an excerpt from CSMG's full report -- these are the four core benefits that mHealth offers to alleviate healthcare industry challenges:

For more check out the CSMG press release here
To read the full report, head over to CSMG's website