A Rosy Picture for Asia Pacific

The increase of healthcare turnkey projects in Asia Pacific has accelerated the growth of the medical imaging market within the region. Frost & Sullivan reported that the market is positive and expects a double-digit expansion of 12.7% CAGR by 2012, which is more than twice the rate in comparison with the rest of the world. Reenita Das, senior vice president, Healthcare, Frost & Sullivan, believes that the increase in medical tourism activity around the region has been one of the key drivers for the medical imaging industry. State-of-the-art medical equipment within hospitals and diagnostic centres are crucial criteria for medical tourists seeking treatment away from home. Such a spike in demand from the medical tourism sector raises the expectation bar of patients; as such, hospitals need to be more medically updated in all aspects, including imaging equipment. This competitive environment forces healthcare service providers to upgrade their existing medical imaging systems or to build new hospitals in order to compete for the medical tourism pie, thus firing up more demand for more medical imaging systems in the region. A crucial paradigm shift in patients' mindset on personal health is another growth factor for the medical imaging economy. Patients' are actively moving away from the traditional concept of disease treatment or "sick care" to preventive healthcare diagnosis. The benefits of early diagnosis of chronic and life-threatening disease types, such as cardiovascular diseases and cancer, are increasing the demand for health screening, with early detection enabling patients and doctors to plan course of actions to prevent the disease rather than treatment. Increased patient demand for frequent health screenings has led to a new breed of healthcare service providers specialising in diagnostics procedures, and privatised health screening centres are seeing exponential growth in both developing and developed economies. In alignment with early diagnosis, businesses are increasingly recognising the need to invest in holistic corporate wellness programmes, and part of such a programme is to ensure that employees are provided with periodic health screening. Corporations implement such programmes to deal with the bigger human capital issue, which is mostly due to loss of productivity rather than employee downtime. Das says, "Looking at the change in mindset of the consumers and businesses, many healthcare service providers are now actively upgrading their health screening services in the region to start catering to these needs." Das estimates that the Asia Pacific market revenue will reach USD 8.6 billion by 2012 given the rate of expansion at the moment. "The healthcare business is a cyclical model. The patients' paradigm shift to wellness drives medical tourism and promotes expansion of health screening centres. The next logical step will be to increase service levels by integrating medical imaging devices with hospital information systems. This step is crucial to hospitals and health screening centres hoping to take a bite from the medical tourism revenue," commented Das. Integrated medical imaging technology, such as the Picture Archiving and Communication Systems (PACS), enhances workflow efficiency for medical professionals. Malaysia appears to be one of the countries with strong growth potential in this area. At a market size of USD 5.6 million in 2010, PACS already comprises 8% of the total USD 81 million value of the medical imaging market in Malaysia, and Das expects that PACS will grow at a CAGR of 12% into 2012. Digital imaging (CR/DR/CAD) is a market sector worth USD 3.1 million and from 2010 to 2012 will grow at a CAGR of 9.4%, as both private and public hospitals move towards digitised solutions, thus creating an abundance of opportunities for digital radiology solutions. adidas Mutator