This IDC study focuses on the health sector in Australia, providing a map of where short- and long-term opportunities can be found, and highlighting purchasing patterns for products and services by market. It is part of a series of reports focusing on specific vertical markets. Provided are actual ICT marketing sizing and IT market shares for 2011, along with forecasts for 2011–2015, including five-year compound annual growth rates (CAGRs).

"The Australian health industry and government agencies involved in its delivery will need to now focus on how to ensure that the very significant investments that have been made to build the foundation of infrastructure that are required to deliver electronic healthcare delivery can start to deliver greater efficiencies, as well as productivity improvements that will ultimately reduce the cost of delivery of world-class healthcare in Australia," says Emilie Ditton, research manager, Vertical Markets, IDC Australia.

"There has been expressed scepticism about the benefits of ehealth implementations from several angles in Australia," notes Sash Mukherjee, senior market analyst, IDC Health Insights, Asia/Pacific. "To be able to answer these sceptics, the government needs to dynamically update its compliance regulations regarding security, privacy, and access, as the personally controlled ehealth record (PCEHR) is implemented to its full potential. Investments in analytics should also be started early and propagated incrementally, and not after the implementation of other solutions. Integrated analytics can utilise the immense amount of data generated to make it actionable information, which can positively impact customer retention, operational efficiency, and clinical outcomes," Sash Mukherjee adds.