HEALTH

13 Jul 2016

Beijing, July 13, 2016 — Various measures are driving healthcare service process reengineering and upgrading in China healthcare IT. Such measures include Tripartite Healthcare Linkage (joint actions between healthcare service, health insurance and pharmaceutical management), promotions of hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, general practitioner pilot work, separation of clinic from pharmacy, development of private hospitals, and medical insurance payment reform trials. With the integration of new technology-driven Internet healthcare with health management and in-hospital healthcare services, demand for hospital information systems renewal has increased. The effective implementation of the healthcare reform policy and the continuous development of new healthcare service models based on emerging information technology accelerate changes in both healthcare service modes and healthcare IT architecture in China.

According to IDC’s latest report China Healthcare IT Solution Market Forecast, 2016-2020 (IDC#CHC41478716, June 2016), China’s overall healthcare IT solutions market reached a size of US$3.8 billion in 2015. Market size is expected to hit US$6.5 billion, with a CAGR of 11.1% in the 2015-2020 period.

Figure 1

Further analysis shows the following development trends:

Healthcare cloud services becomes the norm

In 2015, healthcare institutions in China formed a cloud service market size of US$28.6 million. Such services mainly consisted of IaaS and SaaS. In the next few years, this market is expected to achieve a CAGR of 34%, reaching a size of US$125.0 million by 2020. Cloud service are expected to enter a period of continuous fast growth. In some applications, cloud HIS as the pioneer of the SaaS model has started to gradually grow in the market. Cloud HIS products introduced by DHC and Ali Healthcare are now in a process of deployment and promotion. More vendors have begun to pay attention to this field or are currently developing related products. In 2016 and beyond, specialized healthcare industry clouds will be established, with the government involved in certification and supervision of healthcare industry clouds. Provided that the government does its promotional work well, the market will expand faster in the future.

Mobile healthcare sets the stage

In 2015, China’s in-hospital mobile application solution (including terminal devices and mobile software and services) market reached a size of US$156.6 million. This market is expected to have a CAGR of 24.6% in the next few years, reaching US$471.4 million in 2020. Mobile application systems have been widely adopted in hospitals and will continue to grow. Mobile application systems used to support healthcare and nursing personnel not only are an important tool to support in-hospital diagnosis and treatment such as closed-loop nursing, but also lay the foundation for the development of integrated in-hospital and outside-hospital healthcare services. In 2016 and beyond, various hospital information systems, hierarchical diagnosis and treatment systems and regional health information systems will benefit from innovative development. Zhuojian Technology, Quyiyuan.Com, SENYINT and other emerging healthcare vendors have begun to apply mobile healthcare and long-distance healthcare in hierarchical diagnosis and treatment systems. In the future, systems that support the integration of in-hospital and outside-hospital healthcare services will develop as industry platforms.

Healthcare payment platforms

Healthcare delivery platforms will be built to connect all kinds of payers and healthcare institutions and provide service to users at large. Ping’an Group as a supersized health insurance company is also actively expanding such healthcare service business and actively takes part in Tripartite Healthcare Linkage.

In a nutshell, Emerging technologies and Internet healthcare complement each other. Third platform technology-based emerging HIT systems are becoming a supporting pillar in the grand changes in healthcare service models. In 2016 and beyond, hospital information systems will be upgraded to next-generation hospital core management systems. Cloud service and mobile Internet will become the basic architecture for such system deliveries. These architectures will adopt a B2B2C development model. Integrated solution platforms will drive the development of Internet healthcare and the Internet healthcare service market will grow faster. According to Leon Xiao, Senior Research Manager at IDC China,

"An emerging information system architecture that integrates in-hospital and outside-hospital services will change the healthcare IT delivery model forever as the breadth of healthcare expands.”