A report from IDC Health Insights lists 10 predictions for health IT in 2015. The outlook suggests that consumers expect hospitals and healthcare providers to be more responsive to their needs and wishes, which will necessitate the employment of new, cost-effective technology systems and tools. The focus will be on consumer engagement, mobile devices, and third platform technologies.
In a press statement, Scott Lundstrom, Group Vice President and General Manager of IDC Health Insights, said “These decision imperatives provide a road map for healthcare organisations to think about IT investments that will need to be made and the impact they will have on an organisation, all of which can be used to support the planning and budgeting process.” The list is based on an IDC FutureScape report.
Here are IDC Health Insight’s predictions for the year(s) ahead:
- Operational inefficiency will become critical at 25 percent of hospitals, prompting data-driven digital hospital strategies to be budgeted for in 2016.
- Cyber attacks will require investment in multi-prong security strategies. By 2015, half of healthcare organisations will have experienced one to five cyber attacks, a third of which are deemed successful.
- 15 percent of hospitals will create a comprehensive patient profile by 2016. These profiles will allow for personalised treatment plans, helping to improve quality and control costs.
- Providers will learn to leverage cloud-based technologies and infrastructure for the collection, aggregation and analysis of data. By 2020, 80 percent of healthcare data will pass throughout the cloud at some point.
- 65 percent of consumer transactions with healthcare organisations will be mobile by 2018, necessitating the development of omni-channel strategies to provide a consistent customer experience.
- Virtual care will become a reality for 70 percent of healthcare organisations worldwide by 2018, driven by skyrocketing healthcare costs. Patients with chronic conditions and their caregivers stand to benefit from consumer-facing mobile applications, wearable devices, remote health monitoring and virtual care. Organisations should have big data and analytics capabilities in place to support population health management initiatives.
- More than half of big data issues will be reduced to routine operational IT by 2018. By building on technology innovations and the growing use of knowledge-based workflows and actionable analytics, fewer specialised IT resources will be needed to support big data.
- By 2018, external outsourcing partners will have to share substantial risk with health and life science buyers, emphasising the growing role of service providers in healthcare delivery processes. High performers will see added revenues at the expense of lesser performers.
- In the European Union and North America, payers will implement new reimbursement models for 35 percent of their payments to providers within the next 36 months.
- By 2020, 42 percent of newly created digital healthcare data will be without necessary protection.
IDC Health Insights is an advisory services and market research firm which tracks healthcare payer, provider and life science markets. The organisation emphasises the development of strategies that leverage IT investments in order to maximise performance. The consultancy has been headquartered in Framingham, Massachusetts since its founding in 2004. It is part of the International Data Corporation’s (IDC) International Data Group.
Source: IDC
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