Medical display sales: a picture of health

27 Sep 2006

Europe's market for medical displays will more than double from $110 million in 2005 to $290 million by 2012. Growth in the US will be almost as strong, rising to $1.8 billion.

The market for medical imaging displays in Europe is projected to generate revenues of $289.4 million in 2012 - up from $110.2 million last year. That's the conclusion of a new study by Frost & Sullivan, an international technology consultancy.

"As medical imaging evolves beyond the radiology department, a wider variety of end users are demanding to view patient examinations," said Frost & Sullivan team leader Martin Bryant. "To view these images, a greater number of medical displays needs to be installed, contributing to market growth and leading to a significant increase in revenues."

Diagnosis by a radiologist is no longer the sole purpose of a medical image, according to Medical Imaging Display Markets in Europe. Digitized hospitals linked to picture archiving and communications systems (PACS) "have democratized imaging", enabling the use of images for referral, patient consultation and surgical planning.

"With displays being necessary for physical viewing of these images, demand for them is likely to see a sharp increase, in line with a wider portfolio of image users," says the study.

While the market is witnessing enhanced demand for a wider network of displays, the need for cost savings is gaining momentum. To this end, several hospitals are seeking commodity displays for referral purposes, says Frost & Sullivan. Further, the lack of concrete, Europe-wide guidelines is encouraging the adoption of this attitude.

"Financially constrained customers are increasingly seeking justification for installing non-medical-grade displays for secondary or tertiary reading," explained Bryant. "This presents cost savings for end users but poses a significant threat to the business of market participants."

Medical-grade displays fitted with autocalibration software and remote performance monitoring will provide long-term image viewing of the highest quality for efficient diagnosis and referral. "Vendors seeking to capitalize on the need for a greater range of displays will need to invest resources in promoting the above to successfully differentiate medical displays from those in the commodity category," the study concludes.

The US perspective

Frost & Sullivan also predicts an encouraging outlook for the US medical imaging scene. Specifically, a new study forecasts that the US market for turnkey PACS in radiology is projected to be worth $1.77 billion in 2012 - up from $1.10 billion in 2005.

The report notes that as radiology-based PACS expand to multiple clinical departments - among them cardiology, orthopaedics and women's imaging - the PACS market will inevitably move towards more of a solution-oriented, services-based model. The bottom line: vendors promoting the adoption of PACS throughout the enterprise and gaining expertise in departments outside radiology are more likely to thrive in the mid-term.

"Moving away from siloed and proprietary solutions, enterprise PACS systems need to constitute the image-management component within a larger enterprise IT infrastructure," explained research analyst Nadim Daher. "The future of PACS founds upon PACS integration and interoperability within distributed environments, while PACS shape their role within the larger digital health-care infrastructure that is taking shape in the nation."