The importance of collaboration
Government funding and initiatives across Western European markets are expected to create opportunities for tools that drive collaboration and productivity; NHS England’s Unified Tech Fund, the French Healthcare Innovation 2030 strategy and the Gara Sanità digitale in Italy are good examples.

These initiatives will drive short-term investment across imaging IT markets, with products such as image exchange, enterprise imaging and cloud, a priority for providers. With the drive for collaboration, it is expected that workflow tools such as federated worklists will increasingly be sought by healthcare providers. Furthermore, new workflow products to drive better care outcomes and cross-team collaboration are expected to become available, such as teleradiology referral management, triage, or tumour board functionality.


Alongside funding, the pandemic created a shift in how and where patients want care to be delivered, with the growing use of outpatient and ambulatory providers. This directional shift to outpatient is also driven by government and payers; in the USA for example, some payers have placed restrictions on where non-emergency imaging can be conducted. In public markets such as the U.K., the government is injecting money into outpatient centres to reduce waiting time for backlog procedures. Imaging IT vendors are slowly evolving to consolidate disparate systems to drive interoperability, as there is a clear emphasis on the need for connectivity across networks and capturing all data along the patient care continuum.

For emerging markets, the focus for investment remains on the core radiology platform, with much of the market procuring stand-alone solutions; in some pockets of Asia Pacific and Latin America, “enterprise radiology” is increasingly preferred. Trends toward interoperability and collaboration, will be a longer-term ambition for these markets with first adopters expected 2024-2026.

Roadmap to success
Due to the shift in where images are acquired and read, vendors need to consider the role of the outpatient and ambulatory settings and develop a strategy to adapt solutions to meet the need of the market, with emphasis placed on productivity and efficiency. Competition will be stiff. In the last 12-18 months vendors have released products directed at outpatient imaging centres; Change Healthcare and GE Healthcare for example, as well as new entrants to the USA radiology market, Sirona Medical.

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