Healthcare, long an unattractive target for IT companies, has become a hotspot for tech activity because of the rapidly changing market and regulatory forces that have allowed Software-as-a-Service to become a viable tool in the industry, according to an article from Harvard Business Review.
The following are five factors that have opened up the healthcare sector to IT companies, according to the report.
1. athenahealth opened the floodgates when its shares nearly doubled in the first day of its initial public offering, supporting the idea that SaaS subscription-based models for tech solutions could be successful in healthcare.
2. Job loss in the economy at large but growing healthcare employment during the recession of 2008 indicated labor costs might be contributing heavily to wasteful spending in healthcare, thus indicating potential success for SaaS platforms.
3. The HITECH act increased EHR adoption dramatically, creating opportunities for software startups in healthcare to join the fray.
4. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act mandated cost and quality data availability, creating more opportunities for startups to both work with this data and see where software solutions might be of use to the healthcare industry.
5. The PPACA's risk-based payment models have incentivized innovation.
More articles on health IT:
Life of a healthcare CIO: University of Mississippi's David Chou
GE Healthcare IT's president on health IT today
13 top reasons physicians adopt or forgo EHRs