EHR spending expected to rise
LONDON – After years of predicting that healthcare organizations would begin buying electronic health records, that time has apparently come.
Spending on complex clinical information systems to keep track of patient information is expected to grow to almost $13 billion by 2012, according to Datamonitor, a provider of industry-specific data forecasts.
The London-based company estimated that North American and European spending on EHR systems in 2007 totaled $4.4 billion, thus yielding a compound annual growth rate of 23.8 percent.
“After years of watching and waiting, now is finally the time for healthcare organizations to implement EHRs,” Datamonitor said in the report, titled “Opportunities in the Electronic Health Record Market.”
The report concludes that the ideal EHR network is not yet available, but is attainable in the near future, and it will accept digital information from hospitals, physicians, ancillary providers, patients through personal health records, public health departments and payers.
Cost remains the most significant barrier to adoption of electronic health records, said Christine Chang, healthcare technology analyst for Datamonitor, but EHRs will continue to be viewed as a “must-have” capability for providers.
“Moving from today’s single-digit and low double-digit adoption rates to 100 percent usage will require planning, time, resources, incentives, sharing of information and perhaps most importantly, a change in attitude on the part of providers,” Chang wrote. “Positive publicity will be a key; EHR success stories have been overshadowed by accounts of failures.”
EHR implementations are easier than the efforts experienced by early adopters, but “EHR technologies still have a way to go before the healthcare industry enters the 21st century,” she concluded.
