Medical IT or Medical Informatics cover the large range of applications from information and communication systems for healthcare facilities to medical technologies and embedded systems.

According to different studies, the world wide market volume for medical IT varies from € 100 to 170 billion. Keeping costs under control and offering cost effective treatments to an ageing population are the reasons for this growth rate. PACS (x-Ray) Picture Archiving and Communication systems) and EPR (Electronic Patient Records) are among the most popular applications. According to Philips Medical, one of the key players in this segment, ranking 3^rd with a growth rate of 12%, North America has a market share of 14% versus 12% for Europe. Experts predict 6-7% worldwide market growth for 2004, but with large geographical differences: 16% for North America, but only 4% for Europe and 2% for Asia.

The important PACS market growth rate has slowed down to 6 in North America and 4% in Europe, but remains high in Japan with 7%.

The trends go to integrated systems, i.e. integration of different applications such as PACS or EPR and other technologies into compatible or all-in-one applications.

Source: ITBeurope, various sources