Top Trends for 2010
By Ken Sternberg —
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“Health care is rated No. 5 in IT spending. Now, they’re trying to catch up,” he said.
Blik estimates that converting paper records to electronic records during the next five years will cost the average 1,000-bed hospital about $20 million and the average 200- to 300-bed hospital about $5 to $10 million. There are already many EMR software applications being sold to health care providers, with many more in the pipeline. And every application will need IT staff to help medical personnel learn to adapt and use them, Blik said.
“One of their challenges is to bring their infrastructure up to date,” he said. “Every type of infrastructure will have to be brought up to speed. The industry is going to need a lot more people that understand EMR. It will need any IT personnel that are familiar with the various aspects of EMR, especially EMR analysts. It takes years to adopt an EMR system, and it’s a great opportunity for IT people to go into the health care market now.”
Chambers added that some other interesting technology trends to watch for are the adoption of wireless power, more powerful netbooks with the potential to replace desktops, location-aware devices (GPS enabled), and augmented reality devices. And although the cost savings may not be immediate, there will be a larger push toward “green” technology — something that may even become mandatory, he said.
Ken Sternberg is a Massachusetts-based freelancer writer who has covered wine, food, alternative fuels, technology, corporate emergency planning and many other topics for business and consumer publications. He can be reached at editor@certmag.com.
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