You already knew that this was coming, but this research just nails things down further. Market analyst Datamonitor is projecting that the homecare telehealth market, otherwise known as remote patient monitoring, will grow at a five-year compound annual growth rate of 56 percent. That far surpasses 9.9 percent growth projected for the clinical telehealth market. Datamonitor expects to see the global telehealth market will hit $8 billion or more by 2012.

Despite this projection, there are still some significant barriers to telehealth, analysts note. For example, in perhaps the most damning example, many insurance companies still down pay for telehealth. Also, telehealth still isn't a part of most physicians' practice patterns. Yet another issue is making sure that telehealth devices used by patients are well-designed for consumer use. (Many are too complex for impaired patients to use properly, analysts suggest.)

Nonetheless, given the costs of managing elderly and chronically ill patients, the market has plenty of pressure on it to grow, as well. In the future, analysts expect to see the use of telehealth technology expand to more patients and more conditions.

To learn more about the study:
- read the Datamonitor press release [1]

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