The healthcare IT market is primed for continued growth over the next five years, with immediate uptake for wireless and cloud computing solutions, according to a variety of recent studies.
Global marketing firm Compass Intelligence said it expects healthcare organizations (including hospitals, doctors’ offices, private practices and clinics) to spend an estimated $73.1 billion this year on IT products, services and solutions, with expenditures climbing to $85 billion by 2014.
The firm says spending is being driven by the government’s push for the adoption of electronic health records (EHR) backed by stimulus dollars. Other factors include investments in systems and networks to support new applications, and the adoption of mobile applications, hardware, and other software to support patient care, patient records and next-generation medical diagnostics and imaging.
“The federal stimulus funding in the HITECH Act has sparked the healthcare industry to invest in systems, software and network infrastructure to support EHR implementation,” said Stephanie Atkinson, managing partner at Compass Intelligence. “The push for compliance is uncovering pent up demand and giving light to delayed technology investments.”
Meanwhile, ABI Research reports that the uptake of Wi-Fi within healthcare has grown at more than 60 percent over the past 12 months in both wireless LAN and Wi-Fi RTLS (Real-Time Locations Systems) deployments. High double-digit growth is expected to continue for at least the medium term.
Other wireless technologies being adopted and deployed in healthcare have also seen significant growth over the past 12 months. These technologies range from cellular M2M 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,” said 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.”
According to Accenture, nearly one-third of healthcare sector decision makers said they are using cloud applications, and 73 percent said they are planning to move more applications to the cloud. The firm says those figures fall in line with findings about cloud adoption plans in other industries.
Accenture mined its data from a February study from Mimecast that examined the perception and adoption of cloud computing solutions among 565 respondents responsible for managing their organizations’ IT operations and budget across the U.S. and Canada.
In the Mimecast survey, 54 percent said cost savings are the primary motivation behind the adoption of cloud-based services. However, agility and scalability (49 percent), efficiency (39 percent) and streamlined administration (36 percent) were also cited as key benefits.
“This research shows that once enterprises experience cloud-based applications, their fears about integration, reliability and costs are immediately alleviated,” said Mimecast Chief Executive Officer Peter Bauer. “The survey’s results point to a bright future ahead for cloud computing as more and more companies look to the cloud to create an efficient and agile organization.”
