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More work needed on laws around healthcare IT

By Anne Widjaja 

Whilst the Asia-Pacific region has significantly grown its investment in healthcare IT in the last year, the laws regarding issues of privacy, data security and access remain underdeveloped.

 In most countries within the region, there are no laws specific to healthcare records. However, growing investment in healthcare IT has increased the need for clearer compliance laws pertaining to healthcare recording procedures. 

In Australia, the implementation of E-health and the development of the personally controlled electronic health record (PCEHR) project has brought light to the need for firmer laws both nation-wide and across the region. 

Sash Mukherjee, senior market analyst, IDC Health Insights Asia-Pacific, reveals that the forthcoming IDC Health Insights report, Asia/Pacific Healthcare 2012 Top 10 predictions, envisages that “Australia will demonstrate to the region the significance of healthcare-specific compliance laws in the coming year”. 

Mukherjee argues: “Australia has been leading the region in per capita healthcare IT spending. It has also made attempts to upgrade the compliance laws around health information. But as the full potential of its nationwide E-health initiative unfolds, there will be a greater need to upgrade and fine-tune these laws.”  

Furthermore, despite the varied nature of health needs across the Asia-Pacific region, the report has found that a focus on healthcare mobility will be common to almost all countries in the region. Increased mobility of healthcare services will aid improvements in patient safety, point-of-care access to patient information, as well as clinical decision support. It will also lead to continuing investment in telemedicine for remote care and mobile applications for personal health management.

IDC’c other predictions for healthcare providers and healthcare IT specialists in the Asia-Pacific region in 2012 are:

1. The overall market for healthcare IT will remain vibrant even amidst fears of economic downturn. 

2. Medical tourism will prompt IT investments in emerging markets. 

3. Australia will lead the region into setting clearer healthcare specific compliance laws.

4. Despite hype, most Asia/Pacific countries will not attempt nationwide healthcare records systems. 

5. Best-of-breed Customer Information Systems (CIS) solutions will see increased investments. 

6. Concerns of data security breach will drive ‘hybrid security’ investments.

7. National broadband policies will revive telemedicine initiatives. 

8. The 2.0 revolution will drive market for healthcare applications. 

9. Business and clinical intelligence will become actionable.

10. Data management and storage will be the key impetus for cloud adoption in healthcare.   

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