SEATTLE – A recent report from Ambient Insight, a Monroe, Wash.-based market research firm, shows that sales of self-paced e-learning products and services reached $6.8 billion in 2010 – and predicted that revenues will reach $7.1 billion by 2015, especially in healthcare.
The report, titled The U.S. Corporate Market for Self-paced e-Learning Products and Services: 2010-2015 Forecast, did show “overall flat growth” thanks to the “lingering effects of the recession, commoditization, and pricing pressures,” said Sam S. Adkins, Ambient’s chief research officer.
But that “masks the robust demand in specific verticals,” he added. “Seven of the 10 verticals analyzed in this report have growth rates above the aggregate 0.9 percent."
Moreover, while the overall growth rate "may be slow," said Ambient CEO Tyson Greer, "revenues are very high." In addition, "there are pockets of very high growth rates, which tend to correlate to untapped revenue. This report identifies the top revenue-generating products and isolates the untapped revenue opportunities for suppliers."
"There are dozens of strong growth areas identified in this report," said Adkins. "The growth rate in the healthcare vertical is a breathtaking 45.1 percent. Clearly, there are significant revenue opportunities for informed suppliers.”
With change and evolution coming so fast and quick to the healthcare sector, e-learning firms have had no shortage of opportunities to capitalize on a pivotal time in the industry.
Among recent news:
In April, Elsevier subsidiary Mosby's eLearning, which provides online education solutions to more than 1,300 healthcare organizations, partnered with the American Safety & Health Institute (ASHI) to introduce the Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) Blended Learning Solution – a training certification program aimed at educating care providers about adult advanced cardiac life support.
Austin-based eCareSoft announced in May that it had embedded task-oriented e-learning into its
ONC-ATCB-certified inpatient EHR, offering what it bills as "just-in-time" task-oriented tutorials and learning resources to hospital staff as they progress through their daily workflow. While the initial idea was to "reduce adoption hurdles that are inherent to any new software," said eCareSoft COO Deborah Kaufman, "what we discovered was a powerful, informal learning environment where learning occurs as a byproduct of interacting with the system,"
That same month, Wiley-Blackwell, the medical and scholarly publishing arm of John Wiley & Sons, announced an alliance with CECity, a developer of cloud-based health IT platforms, to provide physicians and other healthcare professionals with customized e-learning solutions. Integrating Wiley’s "stellar content library" in its e-learning platforms will "provide a service for professionals and professional organizations that will help rapidly scale quality programs and go a long way to improving patient outcomes," said Simone Karp, co-founder and chief business officer of CECity.
Roche launched the UK-based CoaguChek Academy on May 27, which it bills as the first-ever online e-learning tool for patients receiving long-term anticoagulation therapy. It aims to give people the confidence to self-monitor at home. Helping to educate patients before a face-to-face appointment with a healthcare professional, the tool frees up time in the doctor's office and, complements treatment regimens.
