Compliance standards are poised to drive the healthcare security industry into double-digit growth rates, according to Tolland, Conn.- based Nerac, Inc., a research and advisory firm.
Nerac reports the market earned revenues of $1.66 billion in 2007, and estimates this will reach $5.78 billion in 2014.
"Use of security applications within the healthcare industry is largely driven by compliance requirements," said Frost & Sullivan Research Analyst Santosh Antony, who attended the Texas Instruments Sponsored Webinar Series on Wireless Medical Device Security, Vulnerability, and Market Trends. "Taking into account the increasing pressure from government bodies, healthcare security is becoming a matter of compulsion rather than choice."
The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is perhaps the strongest driver for logical healthcare security and influences physical healthcare security, said analysts.
HIPAA's compliance deadline for most healthcare entities in North America was May 2007. Noncompliance carries the risk of fines, penalties, litigation and sometimes criminal prosecution in extreme cases.
The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) also emphasizes maintenance of a number of aspects of security, including access control, infant protection, employee/patient identification and a written Security Management Plan.
Analysts believe the biggest challenge for security vendors will likely come from the employees in healthcare organizations who consider extensive physical and logical security checks as a hindrance to their normal job functions.
"Ensuring patient health record safety requires doctors to constantly key in passwords at common workstations and is often repeated 40-50 times over a few hours," said Santosh. "Doctors, who generally have the final say in most administrative changes, certainly do not appreciate such delays, as they can prove lethal."
