Report: U.S. Health IT Market to Reach $22.6B by 2017

The U.S. health information technology market is expected to reach $22.6 billion by 2017, as compared to $15.9 billion in 2012, according to a report from R&R Market Research.

Additionally, the North American health information technology market is forecasted to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.4 percent to reach $31.3 billion by 2017, from $21.9 billion in 2012, due to the increasing demand for clinical information technology, and administrative solutions and services, the report says.

In this report, the market is segmented on the basis of its applications, delivery modes, and components. Based on application, the North American healthcare information technology is segmented into provider (clinical information technology and non-clinical information technology) and payer, while the market by delivery mode is further categorized as on-premises, web-based, and cloud-based. The healthcare information technology by component comprises of hardware, software, and services.

Major factors driving the growth of the healthcare information technology market are rise in pressure to cut healthcare costs, growing demand to integrate healthcare systems, high rate of return on investment, financial support from the U.S. government, government initiatives (e-health, health connect, pay-for-performance (P4P) program, e-Health Ontario and Alberta Netcare), rise in aging population, growing demand for CPOE adoption in order to reduce medication errors, and rise in incidences of chronic disorders.

However, major constraints to the growth of the healthcare IT system are high cost of healthcare IT solutions, high maintenance and service costs, interoperability issues, shortage of healthcare IT professionals, poor standard healthcare protocols such as Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and unprecedented growing incidences of data breaches of patient information.

Canada is expected to register the highest CAGR of 7.7 percent (2012 to 2017) respectively in the overall North America healthcare information technology market, followed by the U.S (7.2 percent). However, U.S. accounted for the highest share—72.6 percent —of the North America healthcare IT market.