Healthcare IT spending in China on the rise

By EgovAsia Editors | Mar 15, 2010

Healthcare IT spending in China is expected to grow from just over US$2 billion in 2009 to US$3.8 billion in 2012, says Springboard Research, a leading innovator in the IT Market Research industry. Springboard’s latest report, “China Healthcare Environment and IT Opportunity” notes that hospitals in China are now focusing on modernizing their IT infrastructure and IT facilities.

“The competitive arena in the Chinese healthcare vertical is highly fragmented by technology solutions, as well as by local and multinational firms. It is increasingly viewed as a hot industry by the world’s leading IT vendors, driving increased investment in product development, acquisitions, sales and marketing”, said Liu Jingwei, Senior Research Analyst, Greater China at Springboard Research.

EMR and Enterprise Networking Fuel Healthcare IT Investment in China

Springboard observed that rapid development of community health services is driving the adoption of Electronic Medical Record (EMR) in China. The government has started to guide and regulate EMR development, lifting it from discrete local initiatives to the national level. EMR now tops hospital CIOs “wish list”, higher than any other application.

The research also notes that network upgrading and wireless LAN (WLAN) adoption will drive the demand of hospital networking needs. Most of the hospitals in China already have 100M broadband in place and thus the future broadband demand will be mostly generated from upgrading to 1G. The current low penetration of WLAN is expected to rise as broadband construction settles and mobile computing continues to gain popularity in China.