Health care is a jewel in the IT-BPM industry

The field of health-care information-management services (HIMS), which consists of the processing, maintenance and care of health-care data, for utilization in hospitals, doctors’ offices, clinics, insurance companies and organizations that provide health-related services, has demonstrated the highest sectoral growth rate in the Philippine information technology and business process management (IT-BPM) industry for the past few years.

The rising demand and cost of services, access to skilled talent and opportunities provided by the digitization of data and the way we communicate have become catalysts for innovation in the HIMS industry.

The Philippines has a culture of care, and a large pool of clinically trained personnel, making it the destination for access to a young, health educated work force that adapts seamlessly into the digital age of information and utilization.

The Healthcare Information Management Association Philippines (Himap) promotes, markets and represents the Philippine HIMS sector to the world. Likewise, it develops, adopts and nurtures best practices in people, process and technology related to HIMS.

Services and solutions in all aspects of the market include pharmaceutical (pharmacovigilance, clinical trial, adverse advent reporting); hospitals, clinics and practitioners (medical coding, revenue cycle management, remote monitoring); payer insurance firms and TPA’s employers (data/utilization management, customer service/support lines, health-care analytics); software development (EMR/HER platform design, application development, security tools); and equipment manufacturers (service and support, application augmentation).
Filipino nurses have been working abroad since the 1970s. The US was a big destination, and other countries in the Middle East and in Europe soon opened their borders to Filipino nurses.

There were about 200,000 unemployed or underemployed nurses in the Philippines in 2011. Lacking options in the health-care field, nurses opted to seek employment in the IT-BPM industry, such as contact centers and some health-care global sourcing companies.

Following the remarkable growth of the IT-BPM industry, and as the HIMS sector blossomed, powered by the health-care professionals with western-based medical education and English language fluency. A lot of the nurses were US registered nurses, with US certification standards allowing them to work on US documents.

The growth of the Philippine HIMS sector is phenomenal. From generating $102 million in 2010, it grew to $1 billion in 2013. The 2015 revenue was almost $1.8 billion. By 2015, the work force has grown to around 116,000, composed of health-care professionals, attracting companies from all over the world.

Most HIMS jobs are day-shift, from Monday to Friday. Some companies have expanded to locations outside Metro Manila, like Cebu. Health-care professionals are making the shift. Pharmacists, doctors, physical therapists, dentists and other fields in the health-care group are building careers in the IT-BPM industry. The Department of Science and Technology, through the Department of Information and Communications Technology, repeatedly recognized the HIMS and its achievements in attaining the highest growth rate in terms of revenues generated.

The Philippines has achieved global leadership in contact centers and is working to become a leader in the nonvoice sector, gaining hold on health-care information management, finance and accounting, human resources and creative process for global sourcing. Global trends show high-growth opportunity for the local HIMS with countries, such as the United States, the UK, Canada and Hong Kong.

Our country has all the ingredients it needs to achieve our targets as identified in the 2016 IT-BPM road map. Preparing for the year 2022, Himap is organizing the Philippine Healthcare Information Management Services Conference 2016.The theme of this year’s conference is “Global Convergence Enabling Inclusive Care and Innovation.” It will be held in Makati City on September 15.

The Philippines is a country with a very high literacy rate, where education is given utmost priority by parents. The country looks forward to the growth of the HIMS sector, where the over 600,000 college and university graduates every year can and will find career opportunities, and build a career.

With government support; careful planning by the IT-BPM and HIMS industry leaders; and with the availability of the needed infrastructure, such as electricity, communication and Internet connectivity, the HIMS sector will be like a beautifully polished jewel where Filipinos can dominate as it grows in the global IT-BPM space.

Source: http://goo.gl/pNUv5d