Innovation Inspired by Economics: 2010 Health IT Forecast

[Commentary] Health information technology is one of the fastest-growing business sectors, expected to grow by 11% annually through 2013, according to Scientia Advisors. That's a bullish expectation, especially in the context of continued financial challenges for U.S. health providers. Health IT purchases will be made despite fiscal constraints such as reimbursement pressure, inflationary costs for labor, supplies and other operating expenses, as well as high patient bad debt expenses. Necessity being the mother of invention, a constrained economic environment will lead to health IT innovations in two ways. First, lower cost technologies are emerging in health IT, such as open-source software, software as a service, and cloud computing, all of which will be priced lower than traditional health IT offerings. Cloud computing (the use of the Internet to store, manipulate and deliver data already existing on the Web) is seen by some health IT consultants as a useful tool in health, especially for small medical practices. Necessity is the mother in a second respect. The financial risks and opportunity costs of health IT adoption will be managed with innovative deals struck by vendors and third parties who see this segment as a growth opportunity.