US Hospitals are in the process of spending Billions on electronic medical record (EMR) systems. The primary goals are improved healthcare outcomes and reduced costs. The problem, universally acknowledged, is that EMR systems, essentially databases of patient data, do not, in and of themselves, reduce costs or improve outcomes. To get value from their EMR investments, hospitals must find ways to process and present the data to clinicians in ways that help them make better healthcare decisions in a timelier manner.
Improving outcomes and reducing costs has always been a noble goal; it’s now a regulatory requirement. Reimbursement rates are going down and yet accountability for results is going up. Hospitals must both improve outcomes and reduce costs in order to be successful. These dramatic changes are being driven by nation-wide initiatives such as ARRA/HITECH and its meaningful use requirements, pay for performance, evidence-based medicine, HEDIS, NSQUIP, outcomes-based compensation, CER, healthcare quality metrics, and physician/hospital rankings.
Our target market for the V1 product is Critical Care within the more than 5800 US hospitals. Between now and 2015, while general IT spending in the US is anticipated to grow at 3-5% annually, IT spending in US hospitals is projected to grow 8-10% annually with spending on software applications within hospitals growing at an impressive 10-16% rate.