As attention is paid to the pros and cons of the Affordable Care Act, it is important to make note of the key role technology will have in meeting fundamental challenges in health care delivery.
Health information technologyis a unique sector of the health care industry that involves the design, development, creation, use and maintenance of information systems for medical- and insurance-related enterprises as well as their consumers.
Health IT jobs pay an average salary of $81,000 a year. Investments in the industry have doubled to $2.2 billion since 2012, according to a recent report by Mercom Capital Group. This increase is a result of current regulatory trends and is expected to open up new markets for vendors.
Georgia is uniquely positioned to capitalize on this growth in a number of critical areas:
• Electronic health records: Atlanta is home to more than 50 major data centers. Two of the nation’s largest fiber routes intersect here. Virtually every major fiber provider possesses a core interconnection point in the metro area. This infrastructure, along with the state’s strong information security industry, is a tremendous asset for managing the data generated by the nation’s medical institutions and physicians.
• Mobile health: The practice of using communication devices, such as mobile phones, tablet computers and PDAs, to deliver health information, marketing and services is now an essential component of innovative health care. Georgia offers a fertile environment for innovation in this space as the state is among the Top 10 areas in the U.S. for mobile development, with at least 24,000 jobs attributed to this sector.
• Tele health: Ongoing improvements to Georgia’s extensive communications infrastructure will help the state meet the growing demand for delivery of remote health screening and monitoring, physician visits and related services.
• Health care payment processing: The U.S. health care payments market is estimated to be $2.7 trillion (IDC Health Insights). Long recognized as a leader in the financial technology industry, Georgia is already claiming a piece of the action. There are eight publicly held financial technology companies based in Atlanta with a combined revenue of more than $22 billion. More than 85 billion payment card transactions pass through the networks of Atlanta’s financial technology organizations.
Georgia boasts vibrant health IT clusters in Augusta, Athens and metro Atlanta. It benefits from the headquarters of organizations like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, American Cancer Society, Arthritis Foundation and CARE. We also leverage the collective brain power emerging from our medical universities, technical colleges and workforce programs.
At the Technology Association of Georgia, I have seen our state make enormous strides. TAG will continue to do its part to build, celebrate, promote, influence and connect Georgia’s health IT sector and our more-than 19,000 technology companies and 263,000 technology workers.
Tino Mantella is the president/CEO of the Technology Association of Georgia.
