The global market for electronic health and medical records (EMRs) could reach $17 billion (12.6 billion euros) by 2017, according to a study by market research firm GlobalData.
The report estimated the worldwide EMR market was valued at approximately $10.6 billion (7.8 billion euros) in 2012, which would mean a compound annual growth rate of 9.8% by 2017.
The study credited incentives offered under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 as one reason for the prosperous forecast, adding that EMRs can help healthcare providers transform unstructured, paper-based data into electronic digitized information that can be shared across the entire healthcare community.
The report also concluded that McKesson had the greatest healthcare IT software and services revenue in 2012 at $3.3 billion (2.4 billion euros), making the company the EMR market leader. Next come Cerner and Allscripts with revenues of $2.7 billion ($2 billion euros) and $1.5 billion (1.1 billion euros), respectively.
