Report: Euro RIS/PACS market moves away from homegrown systems

The European RIS/PACS market was valued at $679.4 million in 2009, and is estimated to reach $1.35 billion in 2016 as hospitals move toward RIS installations from prominent vendors and away from homegrown, legacy systems, according to a report from market research firm Frost & Sullivan.

The report noted that with the third generation of PACS installations, hospitals are recognizing the need to not only invest in a modern RIS, but to purchase RIS and PACS from the same vendor to reduce operational costs.

"Expanding regulatory initiatives of DICOM and HL7 will make the homegrown RIS solution obsolete, thereby boosting RIS installations from prominent vendors," noted Frost & Sullivan Program Manager Eramangalath Sujith.

In addition, hospitals will be required to have a modern RIS to drive advanced PACS installations, as old RIS modules do not have these capabilities. Legacy RIS modules are uni-directional systems that can lead to unnecessary duplication of data and, as a result, add to the operational cost of hospitals, said Frost & Sullivan.

While modern RIS-driven PACS modules will ensure a single-point desktop access to radiology information and digitized images, many hospitals remain reluctant to install a new RIS due to complications with training staff, as well as concerns over data migration and security. In addition, many European hospitals have allocated budgets only for PACS purchase and not for RIS, found the report.

Despite this finding, the report suggested that the prospect of reduced operational costs for the facility during the long term is an important criterion for system adoption that hospitals should consider. Moreover, hospitals can save between 10 to 20 percent (depending on their preliminary requirements) of the total price on their initial RIS/PACS installation when they purchase an integrated system from the same vendor, as most RIS and PACS modules are sold separately.

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