Europe’s expanding IT healthcare network
The growing use and successes of IT in several industry sectors has strongly influenced the healthcare sector, according to Research Analyst Rahul Philip Mampallil, in a report for the markets consultancy firm Frost & Sullivan (www.healthcare.frost.com).
‘Solutions supporting healthcare are witnessing consistent growth as they align the complete channels of operations in the healthcare system. Moreover, with pressure from governments to develop a seamless capability across Europe – the need to have a completely linked healthcare network in the region – will offer growth opportunities to healthcare IT vendors.’
Computerised drug prescriptions and administration in hospitals and primary care trusts are ‘…performing with a high level of success and ardently support a cost/benefit value proposition,’ Rahul Mampallil concludes. ‘Customised stand-alone solutions are witnessing increasing pressures on growth due to intense competition from enterprise solution providers,’ he adds. ‘These solutions are generally provided for services such as nursing, pharmacy, laboratory and radiology. Although enterprise and individual hospital IT solutions are both present in the healthcare system, demand for each solution will depend on the approach of hospitals. The success and stability of these solutions will be determined by the integration capability of their software modules.’
The report notes that global IT companies are a big challenge for Europe’s own domestic IT suppliers, and advises they develop solutions that can be easily integrated, because healthcare organisations appear to prefer enterprise solutions supplied by global vendors.
Currently, Europe’s governments are taking initiatives such as the Connecting for Health (CfH) by the National Health Service (NHS) in the United Kingdom and the Dossier Medical Personnel (DMP) in France. These projects are commissioned on a large scale and will increase the usage of hospital IT solutions, the report points out.
Most hospitals across Western Europe possess IT systems for administration, he adds. Installation of clinical solutions will take place over the next few years, according to the needs of hospitals and primary care trusts.
Emerging European Opportunities in Hospital IT (M020-48) is part of the F&S Healthcare & Life Sciences IT Subscription, which also includes research on European Patient
E-booking Systems Markets, Healthcare Applications of Smart Cards in Europe, Solutions Supporting Pharmaceutical Distribution Channel in Europe.
To order this report e-mail rmtheodore@frost.com, giving your name, title, company name, phone number, and full address.
This article was published on 05/01/2007
