Abstract
Homecare IT Emerges a Developing Market
While homecare IT packages were first introduced in the early to mid 1990s,
the passage of the Balanced Budget Act (BBA) in 1997 saw a dramatic reduction
in medicare reimbursements for home health services. Although this stifled the
growth of the U.S homecare IT markets, they have since shown a strong recovery
aided by an increasing reliance on IT solutions to streamline operations,
increase quality of care, and reduce costs. Hence, with home health technology
continuing to evolve with changing healthcare needs, homecare IT markets are
still in their early stages of development and promise significant potential
for growth.
This Frost & Sullivan research service is an analysis of the U.S. IT markets
for homecare. It utilizes primary and secondary research to provide an
in-depth analysis of the homecare IT sector, including product analysis,
market forecasts, market challenges, drivers, and restraints. In addition,
integration trends, regulatory changes, competition, and technologies are
discussed and analyzed to provide insights into emerging markets.
Regulatory Compliance and Integration Driving Market Dynamics
The homecare IT markets are largely being driven by two primary forces:
regulatory compliance and systems integration needs. The Federal Government
has initiated a number of measures to encourage the adoption and use of IT
systems by home healthcare providers. The establishment of the Office of the
National Coordinator for Health Information Technology and the Certification
Commission for Healthcare Information Technology are two such examples.
Overall, federal initiatives have utilized a combination of regulatory and
advisory techniques to encourage the standardization of formats and coding in
order to streamline transaction processing on behalf of both payers and
providers.
As a result, in the short-term the industry is expected to focus on the
standardization of clinical records and information as well as systems
integration. Integration is taking place at two levels: within each company's
product portfolio, and between different systems. "Most homecare IT vendors
have, or are developing, a product portfolio in which all the independent
modules are integrated and customers can purchase a group of modules as one
system or select modules according to their business needs," says the analyst
of this research service. "Also, in accordance with customer needs and federal
initiatives, vendors are creating networks of strategic partners to facilitate
systems integration and ensure interoperability among healthcare facilities
that are working on different platforms."
Regulations and Standardized Formats are Key to Industry's Future
Presently, homecare IT vendors compete primarily on their ability to provide
customer support and implementation and most solutions require extensive
customization to facilitate their integration with existing infrastructure.
However, as electronic medical records (EMRs) become increasingly standardized
in the long-term, competitive differentiation is likely to be on multiple
levels including customer support and implementation, product price, open
architecture, features, and customization. Also, with regulatory changes
necessitating electronic claim submissions, the adoption of electronic
solutions for administrative and billing operations is bound to increase and
home health agencies (HHAs) that do not adopt electronic systems may find
themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
"Relatively soon, baby boomers are expected to begin reaching 65 years of age
and hence, an expanding customer base and an increase in penetration rates are
two important factors driving the growth opportunities in homecare IT
markets," says the analyst. "Efforts to integrate products and facilitate
business operations such as inventory control, durable medical equipment (DME)
ordering, and pharmaceutical supplies ordering are the main focus of today's
homecare IT product development and will have a profound impact on the ability
of HHAs to remain competitive."
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