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Resource Regions: Central and Eastern Europe

Enterprise medical imaging (EMI) is not just a technology. It’s a set of strategies, initiatives, workflows and solutions implemented enterprisewide to consistently and optimally capture, index, manage, store, distribute, view, exchange, analyse and govern all medical imaging data and content across different settings. It’s there to eliminate traditional imaging silos by aligning imaging technology and infrastructure essentials with universal image availability (without silos).

According to an IDC Health Insights survey in February 2022, 38% of European healthcare providers will invest in a new EMI solution in the next two years and 57% will enhance their current solution. These solutions are likely to be:

  • Cloud based. To support enterprise imaging, healthcare systems are opting for secure, always-on cloud storage to improve the continuum of care and respond to patients’ needs:
    • Easier integration with large hospital electronic healthcare records (EHRs)
    • Faster access to images, reports, results and other vital patient information; a cloud-native image management system can be accessible via a web browser or zero footprint viewer, enabling a single source of patient information; clinicians can also follow patient progress regardless of their location
    • Disaster recovery, with cloud solutions automatically replicating data and enabling complete redundancy and access to information 24 x 7
    • High level of security with data encrypted end-to-end to address patient privacy concerns and limit access to personally identifiable information
  • Supported by intelligent automation technologies. Leaders in the EMI space are focusing on scaling and deepening the use of advanced analytics and AI to support new diagnostic imaging techniques, workflow orchestration, pathway management, rule-based automation of repetitive tasks, reporting, etc., to cater to the specific needs of different clinical use cases, driving evidence-based and precision medicine.
  • Paired with fully managed services. Vendors that provide strategic advice, implementation and support services, tailored to customers and to their business and clinical strategic objectives, are more successful and have better customer retention and customer share. EMI platforms provide a unified environment for data and diagnostic capabilities, but to effectively deploy it, healthcare organisations need to partner with vendors that understand how their medical imaging capabilities are maturing within the organisation’s broader digital strategy. Healthcare providers are also looking for vendors to provide predictive support services to ensure business continuity and dynamically optimise systems.

What’s Driving the EMI Market?

Simply put, it’s the need to navigate away from siloed care and move towards a more integrated care delivery model. In the past few years, healthcare organisations have increasingly relied on their ability to gather, store and analyse massive amounts of data to provide better quality care and operational efficiency. The pandemic has increased the need for imaging and, more importantly, shown that managing complex on-premises infrastructures drastically reduces the agility of already strained IT departments.

As value-based care becomes the norm, healthcare providers are focusing on a data integration strategy to take full advantage of their data. However, this happens only when data, including images, follows the patient throughout the care journey and is easily consumed at the point of care. As healthcare imaging data continues to expand, organisations need technologies that connect data silos and support the entire enterprise.

The Way Forward

To maximise the value of their investments in enterprise imaging, healthcare providers should:

  • Develop an imaging strategy that fits with a “care anywhere” model to ensure the continuum of care to patients
  • Involve healthcare professionals early on and continue to keep them engaged in the implementation and governance of the platform
  • Select an imaging IT vendor that works as a partner to align its value proposition to customers’ goals, as well as constraints, with products and services that offer value for money

To learn more about the EMI market in Europe, please read IDC MarketScape: European Enterprise Medical Imaging 2022 Vendor Assessment or contact Adriana Allocato and Silvia Piai at IDC Health Insights.

This year, the UNHCR announced that the number of people forcibly displaced exceeded 100 million globally for the first time on record. This means 1 in every 78 people has been forced to flee their homes. The number of people displaced, internally or externally, from weather-related disasters, famine and unemployment is also rising. The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) estimates that there could be 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.

A proactive approach is needed to help manage this perennial challenge and to improve the lives of refugees. Or, in the words of the Mayor of Warsaw, Poland, “it is time we phased out improvisation and instead created a strategy for coping and appropriate systems for helping refugees.”

To create more effective and empathetic systems for refugees, governments and their partners should consider taking a life-event approach. The life-event approach to digital service delivery includes bringing a range of services together to coincide with a particular event, such as a birth, marriage, and death. Rather than people having to reach out to a variety of agencies to access different services, governments can integrate information and resources to provide these services in a more seamless way.

More mature approaches also include service coordination and data exchange across agencies as well as with private sector and civil society organisations.

Some governments, including the US Federal Government, have started to take a life event approach to disaster response, from floods to wildfires. These sudden and unplanned life events require citizens and residents to access services from several agencies and require a more empathetic and personalised approach.

The same can be applied to the arrival of a refugee. When refugees arrive in a new country, they generally need to register for residency and digital identity, whether through the government or an NGO, and need immediate access to food, cash programs, and shelter. These short-term needs then morph into longer terms needs, including accessing healthcare services, education, and the labour market.

Taking a life event approach and bundling these services together can help to make often bureaucratic systems and services easier to navigate. This is even more important for vulnerable populations in a time of need and uncertainty. It can also improve efficiency, save time, and reduce costs for government agencies.

For example, in New Zealand, the government created SmartStart, a cross-agency online service to help parents navigate government services around the birth of a child. In its first year, the service resulted in 6,000 fewer visits to the Ministry of Social Development and has been well received by parents, midwives, and NGOs.

However, this should not be seen as a replacement for face-face support when needed. Some groups of refugees, such as unaccompanied minors or people with cognitive or physical disabilities, may require additional specialised and hands-on support from governments and NGOs

Source: IDC 2022

The Government of Portugal is leading the way in providing joined-up services for refugees. The Borders and Immigration Service has set up the Temporary Protection Regime for Ukrainian refugees. When Ukrainian refugees register through the online portal or in person, they receive identity numbers from key agencies including a tax identification number, social security identification number, and a national health service user number so that they can access key services.

Providing integrated services organised around planned or sudden lifetime events comes with its own challenges. It requires governments to set up the right governance mechanisms to collaborate across departments, share data in a secure and trusted way, and share budgets to enable integrated service delivery.

This is no small feat and requires a strategic approach and strong leadership, but there are examples of governments successfully overcoming these barriers.
National and local governments and international institutions looking to improve the lives and livelihoods of refugees should embrace this approach.

Leveraging technology for humanitarian purposes — HumTech — will require the right political motivation and leadership to turn refugee management from an ad hoc response to a crisis to a more systematic response to a perennial challenge.

For more information about technology and it’s impact on refugees:

To explore more of our coverage, please visit our Government Insights page.

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