Market Report Forecasts Booming Emergency Room HIT Market Through 2015
By Chris Rizo

Acute-care hospitals will spend tens of millions of dollars for health information technologies aimed at making their emergency departments and critical care delivery more efficient and less costly, a market intelligence firm said Dec. 1.

Millennium Research Group, in its report, U.S. Markets for High-Acuity Information Systems 2011, said it expects growth of more than 30 percent, during 2011, in sales of emergency department, critical care, and perioperative information systems.

The high-acuity information systems (HAIS) market in 2010 was worth roughly $110 million, said Toronto-based market research firm Millennium Research Group (MRG), a unit of health research company Decision Resources Inc. of Burlington, Mass.

Although segment growth will be “somewhat inhibited” by competing IT needs among various hospital departments, “physician pushback,” and the overall U.S. economic malaise, the report said the HAIS market is an “extremely attractive one and will exhibit significant growth” through at least 2015.

MRG suggested HAIS market growth will largely result from the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, which provides for Medicare and Medicaid financial incentives to health care facilities and professionals, beginning in 2011, for using certified electronic health record (EHR)systems.

The Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, part of ARRA, included more than $40 billion for the federal government to help doctors and hospitals integrate HIT into their practices, generating an “immense demand” for HIT solutions, including HAIS systems, the report said.

MRG forecasted that most of the anticipated market growth will be realized from a steep increase in HAIS purchases by small- and medium-sized hospitals—those with less than 80,000 patient visits per year.

Through 2015, revenues from HAIS purchases by medium-sized facilities is expected to soar at a compound annual growth rate of 19 percent, while sales from smaller-volume hospitals will climb 9 percent, the report said.

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