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Global (Non-US) Healthcare IT Trends 2023
Understanding Organizations’ IT Priorities Pre- and Post-Pandemic
Author
Everton Santos
Author
Jonathan Christensen
During the pandemic, healthcare organizations worldwide dramatically shifted IT investment priorities to meet patient needs. Now, the healthcare landscape has changed again, and new IT priorities have emerged. To understand these shifts, KLAS interviewed 214 individuals from 186 organizations in 45 countries/territories. This report shares where these organizations are prioritizing IT investments, how they plan to leverage the cloud, and what consulting firms they may engage for upcoming projects. (This research focuses on countries outside the US. Learn more about US organizations’ investment priorities.)
Global Healthcare IT Investment Trends
EMR/Digitalization Investments the Highest IT Priority; Digital Health Also a Top Priority
The pandemic highlighted IT systems’ limitations and the need for improved technology and workflows. As a result, EMR/digitalization projects are the highest priority and continue to be top of mind (previous KLAS data indicates these projects were also highly prioritized in 2019). Most regions have over half of respondents prioritizing EMR/digitalization projects. In Oceania, nearly three-fourths—the most across all regions—have an EMR/digitalization project as their top priority, thanks to multiple large-scale EMR tenders and other EMR expansion and redesign projects. In contrast, the Middle East prioritizes these projects less than the other regions do; many organizations have had EMRs in place for years and are instead focusing on areas like data analytics and patient engagement. In fact, digital health—e.g., patient engagement, telemedicine, remote patient monitoring (RPM)—is the highest priority in the Middle East, and its relevance is increasing globally as patient engagement strategies are continually refined. Across all regions, over three-fourths of digital health initiatives focus on boosting patient engagement, most commonly via patient portals and patient experience projects. Telemedicine has been deprioritized since the pandemic because it has already been widely implemented and visit volumes have decreased. Still, one in five who mention digital health as a priority are focused on virtual visits. A few respondents report RPM projects, with most occurring in Europe.
Cybersecurity, IT Infrastructure & Interoperability Are Highest Non-Clinical Priorities
Organizations have significantly increased their focus on cybersecurity over the years—the percent of respondents reporting cybersecurity as a top priority has more than doubled since 2019. Respondents in Canada and Asia are most focused on this area. IT infrastructure is also top of mind for organizations across all regions. Many who forwent infrastructure upgrades in lieu of telemedicine projects during the pandemic are now prioritizing storage upgrades, network refreshes, and new workstations. One-third of infrastructure initiatives are related to the cloud, with most being migration projects; other cloud projects include infrastructure setup and cloud strategy development. Interoperability is also a high priority, particularly in Latin America, Europe, and Oceania. In Europe, organizations are participating in broad regional initiatives to share data via health information exchanges (e.g., integrated care systems in England), and in Latin America, organizations want to strengthen internal interoperability with integration engines. Data analytics projects are also of interest; BI and AI projects are mentioned almost equally (similar to the ratio in 2019). Imaging priorities typically relate to RIS and PACS updates—less than one-fifth of projects relate to enterprise imaging initiatives. Additionally, digital pathology is gaining traction in Europe.
Cloud Adoption
Cloud Adoption/Planning on the Rise, with Asia, Oceania & Latin America Leading Out
The cloud continues to be highly considered as a way to help modernize infrastructure and reduce on-premises maintenance. In aggregate, 18% of respondents globally self-identify as mature in the cloud (i.e., they have redeployed some physical servers or large, core systems in the cloud), and more than half are in the early stages of moving software-as-a-service (SaaS) systems to the cloud or are planning to deploy a solution in the cloud. Albeit from a small sampling, Latin America has the largest percentage of respondents with mature cloud deployments; most of these deployments are in the Caribbean, where heavy on-premises infrastructure is being bypassed for hosted, private-cloud EMR deployments. Oceania has the next deepest cloud adoption, with Australia leading out in cloud deployments for core systems like the EMR. Canada has the lowest mature cloud adoption. Europe and the Middle East have fewer organizations in the early or mature stages of leveraging the cloud (though there is high energy in some places). EU nations are more likely than non-EU nations to be leveraging the cloud, despite limitations from the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). In the UK, the cloud is gaining traction as organizations look to address infrastructure deficiencies and achieve regional economies of scale for various systems (e.g., PACS).
Microsoft Azure & Private Cloud Options Are Top Two Preferences, with AWS Third
Microsoft Azure is the cloud provider most frequently being used/considered by organizations across all regions. It is a top contender in Canada, Asia, and Oceania and is the most favored public cloud solution in Europe. Because many respondents have already adopted Microsoft Office 365, they are familiar with and trust Azure, and several see it as a natural option for cloud hosting. Additionally, private cloud options are popular among those hosting SaaS solutions. SaaS solutions are found in all regions but are most frequently used in Europe, where private cloud adoption is the highest. Some countries, like Italy and Türkiye, are leading out in using a country-wide private cloud for healthcare data. AWS is considered/used by roughly one-third of organizations worldwide. It is most frequently considered/used in Latin America, followed by Canada and Asia; it is not widely considered/used in the Middle East or Europe (with the exception of some mindshare in the UK). Though Google Cloud Platform is the third most-considered public cloud provider, their considerations fall well behind those of the aforementioned options. In some countries, other public cloud offerings are available either via regional telecom providers (e.g., Huawei Technologies in Asia) or technology vendors (e.g., Oracle in Brazil). The Middle East has the highest mindshare for other public cloud solutions, largely due to the prominence of Saudi Telecom’s (stc) offering in Saudi Arabia.
Consulting Firm Usage
Deloitte Most Considered for Future Engagements; PwC, KPMG & EY Also Have High Mindshare
Many organizations are planning to engage consulting firms over the next 12–18 months to tackle upcoming projects. Deloitte has the highest mindshare—respondents are already familiar with the firm from previous engagements and are considering the firm for technical services (building business cases), advisory work (developing general IT or cloud strategies), EMR implementation services, and go-live support. Other firms with high mindshare are larger global consulting firms: PwC, KPMG, EY, and Gartner. Respondents consider them for engagements ranging from smaller technical analytics projects to larger cloud advisory projects. Additionally, Accenture and Microsoft are considered for cloud advisory services, and Microsoft specifically is considered for managed cloud services. Respondents’ firm preference varies by region. In Asia and Oceania, organizations often consider Deloitte, PwC, KPMG, and EY—also known as the Big Four—more than local consulting firms, though Accenture is also mentioned in Asia. Gartner is mentioned by organizations in Europe, the Middle East, and Canada, giving them the fifth-highest mindshare overall. Tegria is considered in the UK (via their Cloud 21 acquisition) and Canada for EMR implementation work. In Europe and Latin America (and Canada to a lesser extent), local consulting firms are strongly preferred.
What Types of Services Are Respondents Considering?
Respondents are most likely to leverage consulting firms for IT advisory services and implementation services. For IT advisory projects, organizations are considering not only traditional advisory services (e.g., IT assessments and strategic planning) but also cloud advisory services. At least three-fourths of mentioned IT advisory projects include cloud advisory services, since organizations are looking to establish a cloud-first strategy or migrate to the cloud. Generally, implementation services relate to EMR projects, though enterprise resource planning projects are also mentioned. Technical services are third most mentioned, and local firms are mostly considered for work like cybersecurity assessments and endpoint detection and response. For IT outsourcing, projects include cloud managed services, remote system monitoring, and traditional IT outsourcing. Healthcare management consulting projects are sometimes considered, with organizations looking for business continuity planning and other management consulting projects tied to potential national initiatives.
About This Report
This report is a perception study designed to help readers understand how healthcare provider organizations across Asia, Canada, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East & Africa, and Oceania are prioritizing healthcare IT investments, what cloud options they are considering/using, and what consulting firms they may engage for upcoming projects. To gather these perspectives, KLAS used a supplemental evaluation to interview 214 individuals from 186 organizations in 45 countries/territories. Data was collected between April 2022 and December 2022.
Respondents were asked the following questions:
- What are the top three priority areas of IT investment for your organization/department over the next two or three years?
- What are your organization’s/department’s plans for leveraging the cloud as part of your IT strategy?
- If you plan to leverage the cloud, how do you plan to leverage it?
- If you are planning to use the cloud, which cloud environment(s)?
- Are you planning to use any consulting firms for any of your initiatives?
- If you are planning to use a consulting firm, which firm, and for what types of engagements?
A Note about Terminology
Though the nomenclature used to describe the core patient record used throughout a hospital varies from region to region or language to language (EHR, EPR, EMR, EPD, EPJ, DPI, KIS, HCE, PEP, etc.), the term that will be used in this research is EMR (electronic medical record).
The EMR is the core record used by hospitals for day-to-day clinical tasks, such as clinical noting and documentation, ordering, results reporting, and ePrescribing. Some systems in this research may not include all of these clinical functions, but they are all viewed by their users as their core patient record. Solutions used solely for document management or scanning are excluded from this research, even though they are the primary clinical system in use at some hospitals.
Geographic Regions
The geographic regions used in this report are based—with some variation—on the United Nations’ geographic regions. Since this report excludes data from the US, the UN’s designation of Northern America has been replaced with the KLAS region of Canada. IT priorities in overseas territories are discussed in the sections for their respective geographic regions (as defined by the UN) and are not grouped into counts for the overarching country (e.g., American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, Virgin Islands for the US; British Virgin Islands, Falkland Islands [Isla Malvinas], and other British Overseas Territories for the UK; French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, and Saint Pierre and Miquelon for France; Curaçao for the Netherlands). Lastly, the UN’s designation of Latin America and the Caribbean has been shortened to the KLAS region of Latin America, which still includes data from the Caribbean nations. This report specifies whenever a trend applies directly to the Caribbean nations.
Writer
Sarah Brown
Designer
Madison Moniz
This material is copyrighted. Any organization gaining unauthorized access to this report will be liable to compensate KLAS for the full retail price. Please see the KLAS DATA USE POLICY for information regarding use of this report. © 2025 KLAS Research, LLC. All Rights Reserved. NOTE: Performance scores may change significantly when including newly interviewed provider organizations, especially when added to a smaller sample size like in emerging markets with a small number of live clients. The findings presented are not meant to be conclusive data for an entire client base.