Branham Completes Comprehensive Study on eHealth Interoperability

- Branham Group Inc., a leading global ICT industry analyst and strategic marketing consultancy in the healthcare and eHealth space, recently completed a major study entitled State of eHealth Interoperability in Canada.  Healthcare delivery is constantly under the microscope but in the last few years the debate about its transformation has accelerated.  The impetus for this acceleration is the recognition that healthcare costs are increasing dramatically and will soon account for a significant percentage of public sector and personal expenditures within the next ten years.

There is a growing awareness of the need to improve efficiencies in the system and enhance the patient experience.  Over the past few years, focus on leveraging technology for achieving greater efficiency in the healthcare sector has increased manifold. Information and Communications Technology (ICT) now forms a major component of the move towards a more patient centric model of healthcare delivery. This requires applications to talk with each other, allow access to information by those who need it and ensure information flow in the correct way. Interoperability, hence, has become the number one challenge on the road to achieving an interoperable electronic health record.   

Branham’s study focuses on the major trends and requirements of buyers and sellers of eHealth solutions across Canada.  Over 450 vendors and 1,000 buyers were contacted for the study that focused on both syntactic and semantic interoperability requirements.  "Over 75% of all respondents fundamentally believe that interoperability capabilities in eHealth solutions are of paramount importance," says Wayne Gudbranson, President & CEO of Branham Group Inc.  He further states, "the respondents clearly understand the information exchange is becoming a significant requirement to effect transformative change in the healthcare system.  Interoperability is at the very core of achieving information exchange." The study provided insightful data points, including:

• 85% of vendors deem interoperability as a key selling feature for their eHealth product solutions
• 75% of vendors feel the lack of well-defined and broadly accepted guidelines has impeded their ability to create interoperable products for buyers
• 63% of buyers would benefit from interoperability testing for both semantic and syntactic requirements,
• Total annual spend on eHealth interoperability is estimated to be $366 million in Canada, and
• Average Annual spend by Buyers on interoperability testing requirements can be upwards of $500K

Ted Dhillon
Director
Branham Group Inc.
ehealth@branhamgroup.com
(613) 745-2282 ext. 121

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