As health care reform goes deeper and deeper, China medical IT industry will embrace overall upgrade and rapid development. According to a recent report from IDC, China Medical IT solutions Market Forecast and Analysis for 2012-2016, healthcare industry spent 14.63 billion CNY in IT in 2011, increasing by 28.9% from a year ago. IDC predicts in 2016 healthcare industry will have an IT expenditure of 33.99 billion CNY, and medical IT market is expected to have a consolidated growth from 2011 to 2016 of 18.4%, higher than the average level of other IT markets in China. The introduction and upgrade of information systems in primary hospitals, digital hospital construction in large-scale hospitals, expansion of regional healthcare information platforms and launch of public health information system, will become four main driving forces for future development of medical IT market.
In 2011, China central government carried out several important measures to boost healthcare reform, which promoted the implementation and development of medical IT solutions. “County Hospital Capacity Building” is the first project funded by the government for the reform, which will greatly promote the popularization and upgrade of information systems in county hospitals.
As medical IT market continue to grow, electronic medical record systems get commonly implemented, and clinical pathway management system becomes the new focus, and it is expected to develop into an important solution that will significantly drive medical IT market in next years.
Digital hospital construction in larger hospitals encourages the application and upgrade of various IT products. For example, after years’ preparation, mobile terminal device market now is in a high speed of growth, doctors are getting familiar and proficient on medical imaging systems, and hav- ing a higher requirement on computers in image workstations.
Pilot of provincial public health information system since 2011 brings up new opportunities for medical IT market for next few years. As there are several models of regional medical information system in China, these models may need comprehensive upgrade and evolving.
Xiao Hongliang, senior researcher and manager at IDC China Industry Research and Consulting Service Department, said: “Public health information system and regional medical IT system will be responsible for data exchange and integration of health information and medical records of all medical establishments in a certain region (such as in a prefecture), to support medical security, health care, disease control, two-way referrals, telemedicine and other business tasks with large demand and high complexity. So, the IT platform has to be able to support large-scale computing infrastructure and a large number of medical institutions. Cloud computing platform and technology is the best choice for public health information system and regional medical IT system.”
Public health information system and regional medical IT solution market is an emerging market, and it is and quite attractive to traditional hospital solution vendors and many newcomers. Meanwhile, electronic medical record vendors also show great interests.
“In 2011, medical reform deepened, the government strengthened police and fund support, and county hospital information system, electronic medical record system, public health management system and regional medical information system and other IT markets all maintained a high speed growth rate, driving the booming of IT products. The roadmap for public health and regional medical IT system construction got clear, with cloud computing will be widely used the platform technology, and integration demand for large data centers and large-scale systems will become stronger, which will grow into new growth points,” Xiao Hongliang added.