Even though some of the top scientific discoveries of the past decade have been in the field of life sciences and healthcare, the healthcare industry has struggled to get up-to-date. It’s typically a paper-based field, so adoption of electronic records systems has been a slow process in many hospitals. However, the complexity of healthcare has necessitated the integration of more and more IT to enhance the performance of healthcare delivery systems.
Countries worldwide are trying to incorporate IT while structuring and formulating their healthcare policies, which has led to a CAGR of 6.46% from 2014-2019 in the global healthcare IT integration market.
Technavio analysts have identified the top trends that are expected to impact the market over the forecast period:
Increased need for remote monitoring
Integration facilitates the transfer of medical observations to a remote viewer. The data from the medical device can also be transferred to an electronic medical record that is accessible to the remote viewer. Seamless integration of systems is vital for carrying out remote monitoring and patient diagnosis.
Emergence of mobile integration and telemedicine
Telemedicine is an essential solution to eliminate geographical barriers and provide medical support in distant and rural areas. Vendors are designing mobile applications to help people stay healthy, prevent disease occurrence, diagnose diseases, as well as obtain treatment for them. Apps that monitor vital signs, as well as those meant for improving fitness and tracking patient recovery all fall under this umbrella.
Increased importance of service-oriented architecture (SOA)
Many healthcare organizations are facing difficulties in finding secure, cost-effective, and reliable ways of exchanging information. SOA helps healthcare providers integrate software applications, databases, and computing platforms within a healthcare organization’s network as well as with communities, states, and national health information exchanges.
It provides a versatile platform for information sharing where the service providers and end-users can access information from R&D systems, practice management systems, claims systems and financial systems.
Increase in integration with social media
Social media is ubiquitous and essential for business, which is leading many healthcare organizations to integrate their systems with social media to enhance the overall customer experience.
Social media can help healthcare organizations enhance their marketing stratagems and customer service considerably. They also help healthcare providers communicate and share basic information pertaining to the symptoms of a particular disease, treatment details, details of specialists, and diagnosis.
