Study sees New York City as coming HIT hub
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
A study released this week cites health IT as an important avenue for diversifying New York City’s economy.
The Center for an Urban Future, a think tank based in Manhattan, authored the report, which presents a case for New York emerging as a health IT hub. The report lists several contributing factors including American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding, the availability of venture capital, and a local health IT infrastructure that surpasses other regions.
The federal stimulus bill’s incentives for adopting electronic health records, “makes the health IT industry poised for rapid growth ... and will likely lead to the creation of dozens of new companies and thousands of new jobs in the five boroughs,” according to the Center for an Urban Future.
The report also stated that New York already possesses a “modest foundation” of health IT companies to build upon. The center estimates that 80 such companies now operate in the city. Those include CureMD, an electronic medical records vendor; ActiveHealth Management, a provider of health management services; and Waterfront Media, an online health company. The report also points out that Google and Microsoft plan to expand their health IT divisions in New York, through partnerships with hospitals such as New York-Presbyterian.
City agencies, however, need to place health IT high on its agenda in order to take advantage of the opportunity, according to the center.
“The first thing the city can do to support the growth of health IT is to really understand the industry ... and try to meet with a number of the key companies,” said Jonathan Bowles, the center’s director.
Bowles said health IT companies in New York aren’t quite as large as companies in other regions. He noted that the city’s Economic Development Corp. could work to strengthen local companies and “get them up to speed so they can compete for major contracts.”
The report notes that “the largest EHR contracts awarded by the city’s Health Department thus far have gone to firms in other regions, an indication that New York doesn’t yet have enough health IT companies with the size or experience to compete for the most lucrative projects.”
David Giles, research associate at the center, said one easy way to help local health IT companies would be to share requests for proposals coming out of the city’s health department. He said the health department and the city’s economic development agencies haven’t been working together much to communicate business opportunities.
