Here are 25 statistics, data points and key numbers to know about the health IT industry.
This article has been adapted and updated from a previous Becker's Hospital Review article called "100 healthcare statistics to know."
1. The Council for Affordable Quality Healthcare estimates the healthcare industry can save about $8.1 billion annually, including $6.7 billion in savings for healthcare providers and $1.4 billion for health plans each year, through additional conversions from manual to electronic transactions.
2. In 2012, paper-based claims submissions cost the healthcare system $2.58 each while electronic claims submissions only cost the healthcare system $0.54 each.
3. In 2013, 59 percent of non-federal acute-care hospitals in the U.S. had adopted at least a basic EHR system, according to the ONC, a 34 percent increase over 2012.
4. A majority of physicians — 83 percent — report they are using EHRs, according to a Medscape survey.
5. Since 2011, CMS has paid out almost $25 billion in incentive payments for the adoption and use of EHRs to hospitals and physicians.
6. By 2013, 89 percent of critical access hospitals had installed full or partial EHRs, although many CAHs did not meet the meaningful use criteria.
7. The EHR market is estimated to reach $9.3 billion annually by the end of 2015, and will likely continue to grow until at least 2018, according to a report from Kalorama Information.
8. The number of jobs for EHR technicians is expected to grow 22 percent, from 186,300 to 227,400 positions, between 2012 and 2022, according to a report from the U.S. Department of Labor.
9. A recent survey found a majority of patients — 83 percent — expect hospitals to use EHRs, but only 53 percent said they trust the safety and security of the software.
10. Physicians are less likely than the nursing staff to be confident in their organization's ability to navigate meaningful use, according to a study in BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making. Only 28.4 percent of physicians indicated confidence, while 47.1 percent of nurses reported confidence.
11. As of Jan. 1, approximately 257,000 eligible professionals faced a 1 percent Medicare payment adjustment for failing to meet meaningful use requirements. Approximately 28,000 eligible professionals will see a 2 percent reimbursement adjustment for failing to meet both meaningful use and the Electronic Prescribing Incentive Program.
12. When patients are given control over who can access their data, approximately one half opted to restrict access for their healthcare providers, found a study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
13. The global mHealth market is expected to be worth approximately $49.1 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 49.7 percent.
14. Nearly half of physicians — 48 percent — used mHealth to determine medication interactions, followed by 27 percent for diagnosis tools and 19 percent to access EHRs, according to a MedData group study.
15. More than one-third of physicians reported recommending an mHealth app to patients within the last year, and 47 percent have used their own devices to show patients images, according to a Manhattan Research survey.
16. Almost two-thirds of nurses (65 percent), said they use mobile devices, social media and online references for professional purposes, according to a Wolters Kluwer Health survey analysis.
17. Nearly 75 percent of adults do not use any mHealth apps and fitness tracking devices, according to a TechnologyAdvice survey of more than 900 adults.
18. Out of 600 of the most commonly used mHealth apps, less than one-third (30.5 percent) have a privacy policy, according to a study in the Journal of American Medical Informatics Association.
19. Only 100 of the approximately 100,000 mHealth apps available — or 0.1 percent — are FDA-approved, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
20. Digital health funding had a record year in 2014, totaling $4.1 billion, according to Rock Health. Last year's funding totals surpassed digital health funding of the previous three years combined.
21. The largest data breach in 2014 compromised Franklin, Tenn.-based Community Health Systems security and has affected roughly 4.5 million people.
22. One half of healthcare organizations will experience up to five cyber attacks in one year by 2015, predicts IDC Health Insights.
23. By 2020, 80 percent of healthcare data is expected to pass through the cloud, as providers increasingly use the cloud for data collection, aggregation, analytics and decision-making, according to IDC Health Insights.
24. IDC Health Insights also predicts 65 percent of healthcare interactions will be mobile by 2018.
25. Forty-two percent of data will remain unprotected by 2020, ICD Health Insights projects.
More articles on health IT:
5 recent vendor contracts, go-lives
10 notable CIO moves in 2014
Georgia Tech to launch healthcare big data research lab