Although enterprise content management (ECM) solutions providers specializing in the healthcare industry have felt a few market hiccups recently as medical facilities and practices consolidate or shut down, the long-term future is looking bright as electronic medical records (EMR) and healthcare information systems (HIS) adoption fuels a huge increase in medical data — and the need to manage and analyze it.
The global ECM market for the healthcare industry will double in terms of earned revenue over the next few years — from $318.2 million in 2013 to $715.4 million in 2019, according to research from Frost & Sullivan. Demand is likely to be steady in Europe and the United States, but the Asia Pacific region is primed for significant growth, especially in Australia and the Asian mainland.
"Attracted by the vast opportunities, traditional ECM vendors have forayed into the healthcare space — some focusing exclusively on ECM software products for this industry and others extending their product line to cater to the needs of healthcare clients," said Shruthi Parakkal, Frost & Sullivan healthcare research analyst. "These trends are expected to significantly boost market penetration rates of ECM, since 70-80 percent of the end user market has yet to deploy these solutions."
One of the biggest barriers facing ECM is the mindset about maintaining the status quo in the healthcare industry, particularly in these times of great change. The successful implementation of an ECM requires commitment from the entire organization, which can be challenging.
Budget constraints are also a contributing factor. However, the growth in the cloud computing market may offer some advantages for facilities looking for a cost-effective way to integrate an ECM solution into the organization.
"ECM solution providers are already shifting their focus from the traditional on-premise models to externally hosted solutions to improve the efficiency and lower the total cost of operations for hospitals and healthcare providers," Parakkal said. "This will bring considerable benefits particularly to end users who are finding it difficult to concurrently manage ECM solutions in-house and optimize the costs associated with it."
Growth in the ECM healthcare market also will likely reflect growth in the general ECM market. MarketsandMarkets forecasts the ECM market as a whole to grow from $6.78 billion in 2014 to $12.32 billion by 2019, which is a 12.7 percent Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) from 2014 to 2019.
Edited by
Rory J. Thompson
