Electronic Medical Records Bonanza?

Big Bucks in Health IT!, quoting from http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/global-market-hospital-it-systems-pegged-35b-2015 , says

SAN JOSE, CA – The global hospital information systems market will climb past $35 billion by 2015, according to a new forecast by Global Industry Analysts. The United States represents the largest market in the world. The U.S. hospital information system market is experiencing an increase in acceptance of customized technology such as laboratory information systems and radiology information systems, the report notes. The market is also a promising ground for electronic medical record systems.

The Asia-Pacific region (excluding Japan) represents the fastest growing hospital information systems market, exhibiting a compounded annual growth rate of 11.5 percent over the next few years, according to analysts. Despite being a smaller market in terms of revenue, the Asia-Pacific promises excellent growth opportunities for hospital information systems, they said.

The global vendors profiled in the report include McKesson , Cerner , Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Eclipsys, Computer Programs and Systems, Siemens Medical Solutions USA, QuadraMed, Medical Information Technology, Healthland, GE Healthcare, iSOFT Group, Agfa-Gevaert, Brunie-Software, IBA Health and Integrated Medical Systems. 

The full release is here: Global Hospital Information Systems Market to Cross $35 Billion by 2015, According to New Report by Global Industry Analysts, Inc. Increasing awareness among medical service patrons on the benefits of using Information Technology in the healthcare sector, coupled with growing demand for affordable-yet quality healthcare services is forcing hospitals and other medical centers to adopt IT in their daily operations. Subsequently, Healthcare IT systems such as the Hospital Information Systems witnessed a great demand in the healthcare services sector. Adoption of HIS in hospitals is increasingly being encouraged and promoted by the Governments world over. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2009/02/prweb2021984.htm

Australian Health Information Technology: Why is Ms Roxon Avoiding Taking Leadership and Initiating Action on E-Health?

This blog post reports that no progress is being made on E-Health (online health records) in Australia, but does not describe the obstacles to progress.

Meanwhile the Australian E-Health Research Center (AERC) seem to be moving along and producing useful research.

Medical Records. The Final Frontier?

In 1922 Henry Ford wrote in My Life and Work
I believe that the average farmer puts to a really useful purpose only about 5%. of the energy he expends.... Not only is everything done by hand, but seldom is a thought given to a logical arrangement. A farmer doing his chores will walk up and down a rickety ladder a dozen times. He will carry water for years instead of putting in a few lengths of pipe. His whole idea, when there is extra work to do, is to hire extra men. He thinks of putting money into improvements as an expense.... It is waste motion— waste effort— that makes farm prices high and profits low.

Anyone who works in a modern office and has visited a medical practice or hospital in the USA in the last 5 years realizes how medical records have failed to keep up with office technology. Paper records are maintained in each hospital and practice. Medical record adminstration may have kept up with Henry Ford's dictates on efficiency in 1922 and even up to the 1960s but since then they have lagged.

Of course software developers and executives have known this for years and software companies have developed products for medical record administration including the biggest software companies.

The Gold Rush has Started
Steven Levy's Newsweek article on online medical records explained how Microsoft
and Google have created products for storing and organizing people's medical information. Both these giant companies are difficult to compete with but medical records is a large area and it is interesting to explore the opportunities of working with or around the giants. So we end up selling shovels to the goldminers.

Selling Shovels to the Gold Miners
The questions we need to ask are

What are the potential 'shovels'?

Can we make them better or cheaper than our competitors?

What are the marketing channels?

Confluence of Technologies
Medical records fall in a confluence of technologies that all advancing fast in 2008

• Storage
  
• Mobile Devices
• Security
• Tracibility
• Audit Trails
• Medical Device Interfacing

Examples of Companies Working in this Field
GE Healthcare’s Centricity
GE Centricity EMR(Electronic Medical Record)

Microsoft Health Vault
How Health Vault Works
Google Health
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2008/03/more-details-about-google-health.html
http://chimprawk.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-health-launch-early-and-iterate.html
http://blogoscoped.com/archive/2007-08-14-n43.html
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/06/new-advisory-group-on-health.html
Challenges Faced By Google Health
Capitol Valley blogger says Google Health is frightening,

Revolution Health.com
revolutionhealth.com traffic


iHealthRecord
ihealthrecord.org traffic



Medem iHealth provides a standards-based, secure personal health record (PHR) available via the Internet, under the control of the patient and able to accept information from and transmit to EHR, health plan, pharmacy and other systems.
medem.com traffic



Further Reading

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/02/google-health-first-look.html