The Health Care Technology Industry in the Health Care Sector includes companies providing information technology services primarily to health care providers. Includes companies providing application, systems and/or data processing software, internet-based tools, and IT consulting services to doctors, hospitals or businesses operating primarily in the Health Care Sector.
Driver: Rising use of big data
In the last few years, the volume of electronic data produced in the healthcare industry has expanded to terabytes and petabytes, primarily due to the digitization of administrative, clinical, and financial information. With the volume growing almost twofold every year, it is expected to reach exabytes and even zettabytes in the coming years. In addition to the growing volume, the sheer diversity of data in healthcare presents a major challenge for healthcare providers. The length of the data and its heterogeneity make healthcare data more complex when compared to other industries. To address these challenges in the healthcare industry, service providers are increasingly adopting healthcare analytics and data management solutions.
Restraint: IT infrastructural constraints in developing countries
Cost issues are one of the major barriers to the adoption of healthcare IT solutions. The maintenance and software update costs of these systems are more than the price of the software. Support and maintenance services, which include software upgrades as per changing user requirements, represent a recurring expenditure amounting to almost 30% of the total cost of ownership. Moreover, the lack of internal IT expertise in the healthcare industry necessitates training for end users to maximize the efficiency of various healthcare IT solutions, thereby adding to the cost of ownership of these systems. The implementation cost of healthcare IT solutions in healthcare systems of emerging economies is even more as they also require capital for building an infrastructure needed for implementing healthcare IT solutions. Therefore, hospitals often prefer investing in the core technologies directly linked to patient quality of care than investing in allied departments. Thus, the high cost of deployment and maintenance restricts smaller healthcare organizations from investing in healthcare IT solutions, especially in the emerging markets across the APAC and Latin America.
Opportunity: Rising use of healthcare IT solutions in outpatient care facilities
In response to the rising pressures on health systems to lower the cost of care, the industry is shifting towards outpatient settings to reduce the care cost. In addition, convenience is another important factor driving the rise of ambulatory care. With the increase in the number of outpatient settings and patient influx, the demand and usage of healthcare IT solutions in outpatient settings will increase.
By product & services segment, the healthcare provider solutions segment accounted for the largest market share in 2020
Among the products & services segment, the healthcare provider solutions segment accounted for the largest market share in 2020. The large share of this segment is attributed to the need to control the growing healthcare costs and improve the efficiency of healthcare services by reducing medical errors.
In the healthcare provider solutions segment, clinical healthcare IT solutions accounted for the largest market share during the forecast period. This can be attributed majorly to The increasing demand for improved patient safety and patient care, stringent regulations, and the increasing need for integrated healthcare systems.
Under the segment of the HCIT outsourcing services, IT infrastructure management services held the largest share during the forecast period. Growth in this market is mainly driven by the growing demand for various HCIT solutions and the increasing use of cloud-based technologies.
In the healthcare payer solutions segment, claims management solutions contributed the largest share. The growth of this segment is driven by the frequent need for upgrades in software applications. Vendors of claims management solutions are constantly introducing technologically advanced products with enhanced data security standards that can easily be understood and used by healthcare providers.