Clinical information systems market - an insider's view

Clinical information systems that provide electronic charting and documentation have been commercially available for over 15 years. These systems provide varying degrees of automation to flowsheets, forms, notes, worklists, care plans, and medication administration records. Although there are many benefits that an electronic system brings, such as accessibility, legibility, process adherence, and data mining, the market has been slow to adopt these systems. A variety of historical factors can explain the lack of widespread system implementations. Survey data of CEOs/CIOs from the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) shows promising data that clinically oriented applications will receive high prioritization in near term planning. Will this prioritization materialize in actual implementations? Market drivers appear to be in place to predict an increase in sales and implementations.