Wondering which hospital applications are likely to be popular in the near future? According to HIMSS Analytics, contenders include patient portals, clinical data warehousing/mining, and radiology barcoding software are poised for faster uptake in hospitals.
To gather this information, HIMSS Analytics did an analysis of the current market penetration and projected five-year sales trajectory each application considered in its Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) report. Researchers found that first-time purchases of these advanced EMR applications should grow dramatically in hospitals across the U.S.
According to Healthcare Informatics, there are good reasons why each of these three technology should be on the upswing in hospitals. For example, the patient portal market is growing because it’s tied to Meaningful Use Stage 2 requirements. Expected growth in sales of clinical data warehousing/mining technology is tied to the need to leverage data held in EMRs, and it’s that that sales increases in and radiology barcoding are probably associated with patient safety initiatives.
Meanwhile, the report also noted that several basic applications which have already saturated the hospital market will be responsible for a high-volume IT replacement sales, including laboratory barcoding, pharmacy management systems and information systems for radiology and laboratorydepartments.
The report from HIMSS seemingly doesn’t take mobile applications and systems into account — I’d argue because they are not yet seen as enterprise-level tools — but I think hospitals will be spending more on mobile technology than anticipate over the next few years, as tablets and smartphones become a permanent part of their infrastructure. Just how fast that will happen remains to be seen, but it will happen.
