IBM continues to invest around US$6 billion in R&D annually to develop and enhance its products and solutions portfolio. "IBM also plans to set at least 100 of its own experts -- versed in practices such as cloud computing, services research, and analytics -- onto various medical technology projects," Del Prete says.

"The idea of a smarter healthcare is welcomed by the local industry. Local healthcare service providers understand that they need to transform themselves into patient-centered, information- rich organizations," he adds.

More Than Data

Another IT solutions company, HP, also sees growth of images as medical data as a crucial part of improving healthcare operations. The US forecasts diagnostic imaging procedures to cross the $1-billion mark by 2012.

"The need for online medical image archiving and storage has skyrocketed in the last few years, with IT staffers and technicians trying to cope with more data, more patients and more work," says Robin Purohit, vice president and general manager, Information Management, Software, HP. To aid this growth, HP optimizes healthcare IT through its HP Medical Archiving Solutions (MAS). To address the growing medical imaging data, the company has created a scalable solution that is applicable to small as well as to large hospitals and clinics.