The future of IT in healthcare

UNLABELLED: There is a very clear need for the expanded application of information technology (IT) in healthcare. Clinical workflow still depends largely on manual, paper-based medical record systems in an activity that is economically inefficient and produces significant variances in medical outcomes. IT spend currently represents around 1.3% of total healthcare spend on average. As shown in Table ES.1, this equates to a global market for healthcare information products and services of $47.5 billion in 2002. The value is forecast to grow by an average of 9.4% per annum to reach $74.5 billion in 2007. As may be expected, the US dominates the market, taking just under 50% of the 2002 global revenues, but will marginally fall back to take under 49% of the total by 2007. During this period, the US market is forecast to grow by an average of 8.9% per annum from $23.7 billion in 2002, to $48.7 billion in 2007. In contrast, the European market will grow at an average of 10.1% per annum, Japan by 8.5% per annum, but the rest of the world, which is currently under-provided with IT, by 10.5% per annum. Table ES.1. World healthcare IT market by region, 2002 and 2007. Year 2002 2007 Region Revenues ($ billion) Total (%) Revenues ($ billion) Total (%) Average per annum growth (%) SOURCE: Author's estimates. US 23.7 49.9 36.3 48.7 8.9 Europe 14.3 30.1 23.2 31.1 10.1 Japan 3.9 8.2 5.9 7.9 8.5 Rest of the world 5.6 11.8 9.2 12.4 10.5 World total 47.5 100.0 74.6 100.0 9.4.