Kalorama Information, a division of MarketResearch.com focused on research in the medical industry, expects the EMR market to reach $39.7 billion by 2022.
In its recent report, EMR 2018: The Market for Electronic Medical Records (Physician and Hospital EHR Market, Geographic Regions, Trends and Issues), Kalorama laid out five under-the-radar trends affecting the EMR market:
1. "Side dishes sell the entree." End-users are seeing value in EHR tools like computerized physician order entry, e-prescribing and image archiving but they may prefer to have them packaged as an integrated suite of applications to reduce compatibility issues.
2. "Digital patient engagement is not happening." To improve patients' online engagement, healthcare organizations should provide tools for patients across the care continuum and software vendors should enhance patient portals to emphasize collaborative patient health records.
3. "[President Donald] Trump wants transparency, interoperability." New policies — namely, ONC's revised processes for reviewing certified EHR and health technology — "will create an authorization and oversight paradigm," Kalorama argues. However, the administration has made it clear interoperability is a top priority, suggesting it could begin fining for non-compliance.
4. "'Install it and forget it' vendors need not apply." Healthcare organizations once sought the most basic EHR. Now, however, providers are demanding vendors both develop and deploy the software as well as maintain and update it with tools to solve healthcare organizations' various business problems.
5. "Money for most competitors is in physician practices." A key growth area for the EHR is the physician office. "Kalorama estimates that the physician and web-based side of the market will grow in excess of 8.5 percent between 2017 and 2022," Kalorama states. "This vast customer base presents a huge potential for vendors who want to target this segment."
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