July 28, 2005

IDC predicts that the healthcare software market will grow at a compound annual rate of about 9.7 percent until the end of the decade.

Analyst Noel Stevens of IDC identified most of the industry drivers: "faced with an aging population requiring at-home or long-term care, escalating overhead costs, and information privacy regulations such as HIPAA, the industry is under intense pressure to bring its information technology into the 21st century."

While IDC counts packaged applications, infrastructure software, and B2B development and services as part of the growth, remember that there are only a few e-business categories in which hospitals are increasingly interested.

For example, radio frequency identification (RFID) technology plays an obvious role in not only tracking patients but also preventing the counterfeiting or misidentification of medicines.

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