As the healthcare technology sector continues to grow and expand, so do the predictions about its future.
Here are 10 predictions on the future of health IT from IDC Health Insights.
1. By 2016, one in four hospitals and health systems will develop a data-driven digital hospital strategy budget to address operational inefficiencies and drive down healthcare costs.
2. Half of healthcare organizations will experience up to five cyber attacks in one year by 2015. One out of three of those attacks will be successful, requiring the organization to invest in a multi-level security strategy.
3. By 2016, IDC Health Insights predicts 15 percent of hospitals will create comprehensive patient profiles that deliver personalized treatment plans, helping boost quality.
4. The majority of healthcare data — 80 percent — will pass through the cloud by 2020, as providers increasingly use the cloud for data collection, aggregation, analytics and decision-making.
5. Sixty-five percent of healthcare interactions are predicted to be mobile by 2018.
6. Seven out of 10 healthcare organizations worldwide will invest in consumer-facing apps, technologies, wearables and virtual care by 2018 to help reduce costs associated with managing chronic conditions.
7. As big data becomes more integrated and utilized, the need for special IT support for big data may diminish by 2018, with more than 50 percent of what are currently deemed big data issues to become operational IT issues.
8. As outsourcing trends upward, more than half of providers will demand increased risk sharing from service providers by 2018, to highlight the vendors' growing role in the delivery process.
9. Within the next three years, payers will readjust their reimbursement models for 35 percent of their payments to reflect and invest in changing approaches to quality measurement, payment and billing systems.
10. Big data will continue to generate new information, but 42 percent of the data will remain unprotected by 2020.
"These decision imperatives provide a road map for healthcare organizations to think about IT investments that will need to be made and the impact they will have on an organization, all of which can be used to support the planning and budgeting process," said Scott Lundstrom, group vice president and general manager of IDC Health Insights.
More articles on health IT:
CIO Chad Brisendine: A young leader in health IT
10 most popular health IT stories of November
IT server blip forces Cibola General to use paper records