The future of IT in healthcare

There is a very clear need for the expanded application of information technology (IT) in healthcare. Clinical workflow still depends largely on manual, paper-based medical record systems in an activity that is economically inefficient and produces significant variances in medical outcomes. IT spend currently represents around 1.3% of total healthcare spend on average. As shown in Table ES.1, this equates to a global market for healthcare information products and services of $47.5 billion in 2002. The value is forecast to grow by an average of 9.4% per annum to reach $74.5 billion in 2007. As may be expected, the US dominates the market, taking just under 50% of the 2002 global revenues, but will marginally fall back to take under 49% of the total by 2007. During this period, the US market is forecast to grow by an average of 8.9/4 per annum from $23.7 billion in 2002, to $48.7 billion in 2007. In contrast, the European market will grow at an average of 10.1% per annum, Japan by 8.5% per annum, but the rest of the world, which is currently under-provided with IT, by 10.5% per annum.