Report: Health IT Market to Double by 2011

The health care IT market is in for annual double-digit increases, and by 2011 is expected to reach almost twice the size it was in 2005, according to a new report from market analyst firm BCC Research.

Hospital information systems have traditionally made up the bulk of the health IT market. In 2005, $8.5 billion of the markets revenue, close to 53 percent of the total $16.4 billion market, came from IT sales to hospitals. But over the next few years, the demand from smaller health care offices is expected to catch up.

By 2011, 51 percent, or almost $18 billion, of what should then be a $35 billion health care IT market is expected to come from physician office, home care, nursing homes and hospices.

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In 2005, the home and office care segment made up about 47 percent of the health IT market, with an annual growth rate of 15 percent. Hospital IT is expected to grow slightly more slowly at 12 percent per year to reach $16.8 billion, said the report from BCC Research, based in Wellesley, Mass.

Although expected to increase at a healthy 5 percent per year, clinical research tools are likely to remain a tiny fraction of the health care IT market, reaching only $166 million by 2011.

Currently fewer than one-third of all U.S. hospitals and fewer than one-fifth of physicians offices have any electronic medical record capability, according to the BCC report.

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