The healthcare IT systems market looks like it will see growth during the next five years, as population health management, the healthcare Internet of Things, and the EHR markets all expect at least a modest compound annual growth rate in the coming years.
Through a mixture of government mandates such as user and patient-centered healthcare requirements, Affordable Care Act requirements, and the growing need for advanced healthcare IT, the health technology sphere should expect to see growth through 2020.
Below is a round-up of the market forecasts for the healthcare Internet of Things, population health management systems, and the ambulatory EHR market:
Healthcare IoT to grow due to chronic disease management
Between 2015 and 2020, experts from P&S Market Research anticipate that the healthcare Internet of Things industry will grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 37.6 percent, according to a recent report. Although much of this growth can be credited to providers’ increasing needs for health IT systems, the market’s growth is primarily due to the prevalence of remote monitoring products used for chronic disease management.
Chronic disease management products include remote monitoring systems, mHealth devices, and other devices mandated by the government.
Although the report does not indicate which countries will benefit from this boom going forward, it did state that North American dominated the healthcare IoT industry in 2014, and that China saw the highest CAGR of 41.6 percent during that time period.
Population health management market to grow at 23.2% CAGR
In another report, experts state that the population health management market will grow significantly between 2015 and 2020. At a CAGR of 23.2 percent, the population health management market should grow due to regulatory mandates included in the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
The ACA will drive the population health management market because of the financial gains thatmaintaining population health has for the federal government and for the program.
“The population health management market is driven by the regulatory mandates laid by the Affordable Care Act (ACA),” the report explains. “The act aims to lower the number of uninsured people in the U.S. to reduce the cost of healthcare for the government as well as individuals. The act has made it mandatory for tax-exempted hospitals to assess community health needs every three years and adopt implementation strategies to address these needs.”
Specifically, the technology and software component of population health management should dominate the market and grow at the fastest CAGR. This is a direct result of the ACA requirements discussed above.
North America should also dominate this market, followed by high growth in Europe and Asia.
Ambulatory EHR market to grow due to user needs
Although much of the past EHR market growth can be attributed to the EHR meaningful use programs, which spurred quick and widespread adoption of the products, the need for better, more user-centric products is what will cause the expected growth between 2015 and 2020.
According to a Frost & Sullivan report, the ambulatory EHR market should grow by 30 percent over the next five years, with an increasing CAGR of 5.3 percent up to 2020.
A lot of this growth will be influenced by providers’ needs to adopt new systems that will help them get better results. Although a majority of doctors are using EHRs presently, there is a market gap for products that will fill specific user needs.
Specifically, EHRs that can fulfill the following needs will be most successful going forward:
- Automating data entry
- Enabling risk stratification
- Coordinating care
- Engaging patients
- Benchmarking clinical performances throughout the care ecosystem
Experts also expect less expensive EHRs with more interoperability to do well going forward.
“Vendors are focusing on software as a service (SaaS) based EHRs due to increasing cost pressures as well as the low productivity and return on investment efficiency of on-premise solutions,” noted Frost & Sullivan’s Transformational Health Senior Research Analyst Koustav Chatterjee. “Not only are cloud EHRs less expensive than on-premise solutions, they are also easily implemented, interoperable, auto-scalable, remotely accessible and compatible with disparate healthcare systems.”
