Specialty PACS Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2023-2028)

The specialty PACS market is anticipated to register a CAGR of 4.87% during the forecast period.

The COVID-19 pandemic had a significant impact on the growth of the market. An article published by NCBI in April 2021 stated that over the past few decades, most radiology departments had to deal with unplanned downtimes of their critical systems, such as the picture archiving and communication system (PACS). During a study, researchers enabled their PACS workstation for home use and evaluated system performance. After that, various guidelines were made, and following that, several research centers allowed wireless adapters for PACS workstations for use at home. This work-from-home option for PACS for evaluation purposes increased the demand for the same, thereby impacting the growth of the market studied positively. Moreover, the implementation of PACS increased during the pandemic, and major players started innovating several PACS models to boost the growth of the market. For instance, in March 2020, IMAGE Information Systems, a provider of PACS solutions, launched disAIblecorona.com to offer the radiology community a place to collect and share worldwide COVID-19 cases to learn and fight the disease. Thus COVID-19 had a significant impact on the growth of the market.

The significant factors for the growth of the market studied are the growing use of visualization, the collaborations between IT structures and imaging modalities, and diverse medical fields incorporating PACS in their practice. For instance, in December 2021, AI radiology reporting firm Synapsica partnered with GenWorks Well being, a healthcare options supplier backed by Wipro GE Healthcare, to deliver its PACS to cities across India. Its Radiolens radiology workflow resolution routinely detects dangerous high-quality scans and creates preliminary studies for most typical modalities. Such distribution agreements are also boosting the growth of the market.

A research article published by NCBI in July 2021 stated that large amounts of imaging data are constantly generated in daily clinical practice, leading to continuously expanding archives, and new progressive efforts are being made worldwide to build large-scale medical imaging repositories. Furthermore, another article published by JAMA in October 2021 stated that an important accelerator for the growth and advancements of PACS in medical imaging is the huge drop in the cost of data storage. Thus, this added advantage of cost is anticipated to boost the growth of the market studied.

Additionally, the growing elderly population, successive growth in the occurrence of different diseases, benefits affiliated with specialty PACS, government measures to boost the implementation of medical IT solutions, rise in investments in diagnostic imaging, increase in acceptance of medical imaging IT solutions, and the growing use of imaging equipment are likely to boost the growth of the market studied during the forecast period.

Specialty PACS Market Trends

On-premise Specialty PACS are Expected to Hold the Largest Market Share in the Specialty PACS Market

The on-site model is the traditional model of software implementation. Healthcare facilities and hospitals largely prefer on-premise data storage to store and manage patient data. Onsite delivery is often called on-premise mode and is defined as a way of software development and delivery when vendors send their qualified employees to the client’s site. Accessibility is the major factor driving the growth of on-premise software solutions. Access to cloud resources can pose a challenge due to bandwidth constraints for global companies with remote sites in multiple countries.

An article published by NCBI in August 2021 stated that clinicians and radiologists mostly rely on PACS to view and analyze images. But if any added inefficiency, such as learning new tools, is needed at the time of implementation, then cloud adoption for this use case would be a blocker for new learning. Hence, Amazon Web Services (AWS) have been offering on-premise medical imaging workstations such as VNA since August 2021.

Additionally, an article published in Springer in May 2022 stated that on-premise software is deployed and maintained in-house at a physical office instead of hosted on a vendor-supplied cloud. These run under company supervision, while the systems and data remain under the company’s control. On-premise mode of delivery allows specialized integration with other existing business systems. Thus, the security associated with the mode of delivery is expected to drive the growth of the segment.

Moreover, as per the data updated by Cleo in January 2022, non-premise software requires a license purchased by the enterprise or a copy of the software to use it because when the software itself is licensed, the entire instance of the software resides within an organization’s premises, and there is generally greater protection of data.

Thus, owing to the above-mentioned factors, the on-site (premise) segment is expected to grow during the forecast period of the study.

North America is Expected to Dominate the Market During the Forecast Period

North America is expected to maintain its dominance in the specialty PACS market during the forecast period, owing to factors such as the growing patient pool and rising geriatric population. Furthermore, the rising prevalence of chronic diseases in the region, technological advancement in imaging modalities, early disease detection benefits, and the domicile presence of some key players in the region are driving the growth of the market and are responsible for ensuring dominance in the region.

Additionally, the strategic initiatives by market players are expected to contribute to the growth of the market. In July 2021, GE Healthcare developed a next-generation, cloud-based picture archive and communication system (PACS) named Edison True PACS. It is a diagnostic imaging and workflow solution that is currently available in the United States.

Furthermore, the initiation toward the clinical use of PACS in the country is also increasing the demand, thereby driving the growth of the market. For instance, in November 2021, Change Healthcare reported that Stratus Imaging PACS is in clinical use. It is a cloud-native, zero-footprint PACS. This scalable, cloud-native platform is used by StatRad in the United States. Such initiations in the use of the PACS also propel the growth of the market studied.

Additionally, the strategic initiatives taken by the market players, such as mergers, acquisitions, and partnerships for the marketing, usage, or development of new products, are also driving the growth of the market. For instance, in April 2022, Royal Philips and Prisma Health, one of South Carolina’s largest non-profit healthcare systems, entered into a multi-year agreement to help the health system achieve enterprise interoperability, standardize patient monitoring, and drive innovation in enterprise imaging solutions to enhance patient care and improve clinical performance. Such partnerships are also boosting the growth of the market.

Thus the above-mentioned factors are expected to drive the growth of the market studied in the region during the forecast period.

Specialty PACS Market Competitor Analysis

The specialty PACS market is competitive and consists of a few major players. In terms of market share, some major players have been currently dominating the market, and some prominent players have been vigorously making collaborations, acquisitions, and launching new products with other companies to consolidate their market positions across the world. Some of the companies, which are currently dominating the market, are IBM Corporation, Agfa Healthcare, Fujifilm Holdings Corporation (Fujifilm Medical Systems), Siemens AG, and Philips Healthcare.

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