U.K. National Health Service (NHS) acute trusts, or groups of hospitals, are expected to spend more than 800 million pounds (1 billion euros) per year on health IT by 2015, according to a report from market research firm EHI Intelligence.
Despite trust budgets that are likely to remain flat, EHI is projecting that total health IT spending will increase by 4.2% in 2012-2013, and will continue to grow in each of the following four years to reach 829 million pounds (1.04 billion euros) in 2015-2016. The EHI survey provides evidence that acute trust boards are starting to recognize the value of IT, the need to protect IT investments, and place more value on the IT departments that make them.
Almost all categories of IT product spending will increase over the next five years, including major increases for IT services, hardware, and software, EHI said. Smaller but significant increases are expected for IT staff.
Patient administration system (PAS) replacements, PAS plus projects, and electronic health record programs will remain by far the biggest market opportunity, according to EHI.
