Report: North American Health IT Market to Reach $31.3B by 2017

The health IT market in North America is forecasted to reach $31.3 billion by 2017, up 7.4 percent per year from $21.9 billion in 2012, due to the increasing demand for clinical information technology, and administrative solutions and services, according to a new report from Dallas-based MarketsandMarkets.

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 computerized physician order entry (CPOE) adoption in order to reduce medication errors, and rise in incidences of chronic disorders, according to the report.

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, the U.S. accounted for the highest share—72.6 percent—of the North America healthcare IT market, and is expected to reach $22.6 billion in by 2017 as compared to $15.9 billion in 2012. The factors likely to propel the Canadian market are its public funded health structure, according to the report.