EHR Market Topped $25 Billion Last Year

By Katie Wike, contributing writer

In 2014, the EHR market reached more than $25 billion. Experts predict that number will continue to rise over the next four years.

A Kalorama Information reports found last year’s EHR market reached nearly $25 billion. This number is expected to increase even more over the next four years, rising to $35.2 billion by 2019.

Healthcare IT News reports, “Penalties, system upgrades, international sales, and continued efficiency improvements will grow the market 7 percent to 8 percent each year for the next five years,” and “the market for EMR systems continues to increase as more physicians and hospitals use EMRs and acquire EMR systems, and as hospitals and physician groups upgrade existing systems.”

Because of the need for new systems, sales grew 10 percent from 2012 to 2014. “There's still a healthy and competitive market for EMR,” said Bruce Carlson, Publisher of Kalorama Information. According to iHealth Beat, the estimated growth over the next four years will be motivated by:

• continued EHR adoption among hospitals
• increased adoption to meet meaningful use Stage 3 requirements
• payment reductions under the incentive program for failing to adopt EHRs

“Expect growth this year and next at seven to eight percent and stable growth until 2019,” Carlson said. “Eventually, there will be market saturation but this is a bit of a way off, especially in emerging markets.”

The report also found 80 percent of the implementation work is spent on issues of change management. The remainder is spent on technical issues related to the technology itself. “As we concluded in 2012 and 2013 (report), Kalorama continues to believe that fear of reimbursement loss will end up driving adoption more than incentives for extra reimbursement, and our forecasts continue to reflect this observation,” Carlson said.