Spending on health IT and health care telecommunications is expected to rise at a faster annual growth rate than overall health care spending, according to a report by Insight Research, CMIO reports.
Findings
The report estimated that spending on health IT and health telecommunications will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 9.7% over the next five years, while overall health care spending will increase at a compound annual growth rate of 6.4% during that time.
The report predicted that spending on health IT and health telecommunications will increase from a $9.1 billion segment of the health care industry to a $14.4 billion segment over the next five years.
Insight in a statement said, "Much of the high costs of the current (health care) system are related to the proximity of patient and provider, as well as to the archaic administrative systems used to manage records and exchange information," adding, "Telecommunications can bridge these proximity and system gaps."
Additional Predictions
The report predicted that:
- Health care providers increasingly will rely on outside service firms to connect with other clinicians, link existing networks and build cloud-based data center platforms;
- Health IT innovations will prompt new collaborations among health care providers;
- Telehealth tools will allow health care providers to treat patients in remote areas; and
- Patient monitoring tools that operate over wireless networks will allow health care providers to identify when patients require medical interventions (Pearson, CMIO, 6/20).