As analysts here at IDC Health Insights, each year we have the task of looking at the big picture and examining the technologies, trends and drivers that we believe will most heavily impact healthcare organizations in the coming year.  We present these to our clients and friends in the predictions reports and webcasts each January, with separate editions for the U.S. and EMEA regions.  While I focus on the U.S. market, as I was reading through the 2010 EMEA predictions I was struck by both the similarities and the differences between the predictions as identified by our analyst teams in both regions.  I wanted to discuss some of the differences between the two sets of predictions as they are informative and provide an interesting insight into the different healthcare delivery environments across the U.S. and EMEA.  The main difference between the two environments is the existence of major national healthcare systems in EMEA, while the U.S. remains a largely private payer and fee-for-service system. 

EMR and HIE technologies figured heavily in both the U.S. and EMEA predictions, although the nature of the predictions reflected the prevailing situation in the respective regions.  In the U.S., the national, time-delimited incentive program introduced in 2009 to fund EMRs and HIEs under ARRA focused the predictions on those technologies for which federal funding was available in the near term.  In the U.S., the predictions around EMRs and HIEs involved technologies and goals that were requirements for meaningful use and federal incentives under ARRA, and would allow providers to attain the maximum funding.  The EMEA predictions reflected progress in 2010 for EMR and HIE technology along a more natural adoption cycle, using terms like "economic sustainability" and "rightsizing" that reflect progress in 2010 without the specific meaningful use requirements and implementation milestones providers will follow in the U.S.  Different adoption paths across the EMEA region will be influenced by the various government eHealth plans and by financial sources that will be allocated also considering current economic climate. 

EMEA analysts also predicted that communications and document management technologies will be top investment areas, as these improve communications between providers and capture documentation, serving as stepping stones along the path to EMR adoption.  These did not make the top 10 in the U.S., although we also expect growth in these areas, the meaningful use incentives are likely to drive more organizations directly to full EMR implementations.  It will be interesting to watch the two paths unfold over the coming years and observe the results in the two regions, particularly if the U.S. embarks on a path to further healthcare reform.  In a related prediction, both regions observe that partnerships between vendors and other players in the distribution channel will be critical to driving EMR and HIE technology in local small and solo practices along the last mile.

In both regions, telemedicine, personal health platforms, business intelligence and desktop virtualization technologies were included in the 2010 top 10, as both regions observe a perfect storm of drivers for these technologies.  In the U.S. we predicted the emergence of medical home best practices, as the nature of the fee-for-service system is driving the need for the medical home model to improve quality and care coordination.  In EMEA. patient relationship management technology enters the top 10; while in the U.S. we are beginning to see inroads into provider CRM and predict growth in provider CRM in 2010, the technology did not enter the top 10.  In the U.S., the remaining predictions centered on revenue cycle management, again, technology specific to a fee-for-service environment, and on security.  While much is different between the 2010 top 10 for U.S. and EMEA, there are clearly many technologies we expect to proceed significantly in both regions over the coming year.  For more information, feel free to post questions in our forum, check out the U.S. 2010 Top 10 Predictions document, the EMEA Top 10 Document (forthcoming), or the replays and slides from the U.S. Top 10 Predictions Webcast or EMEA Top 10 Predictions Webcast.  I can be reached by email at jhanover@idc.com.