According to IDC Health Insights, ensuring compliance, high quality of care, and greater collaboration with patients and other organizations are the business imperatives for European healthcare. It is along these business priorities that IDC Health Insights has unveiled a new report, Business Strategy: A European View on the Worldwide Healthcare 2016 Predictions. The new report highlights the key IT trends that will impact Western European healthcare organizations in the next 12–18 months and presents a European view on IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Healthcare 2016 Predictions, contextualizing the predictions discussed in the global study to the European environment. It also provides healthcare executives with practical advice on where to focus their IT investments and how to manage the procurement, implementation, and operation of these technologies to digitally transform their enterprises.

IDC Health Insights asked the executives of European healthcare providers to identify the key business initiatives leading their organizations' agendas in 2016 and beyond. Analyzing the top business initiatives, IDC identifies three priority areas to enable both the overall convergence across the value chain and digital transformation:

1. Compliance – Driven by the need to secure information in shared care settings and technology environments (e.g., cloud and mobile), ensuring patient information security and privacy remains a key business initiative for healthcare providers.
2. Quality of Care – Improving patient experience and satisfaction emerged as the second most important business initiative for executives, ranking higher than the improvement of clinical performance.
3. Collaboration – A comprehensive information management strategy is a key enabling factor to succeed in adopting integrated care models.

It is along these business imperatives, and the different dimensions of the healthcare organization impacted by digital transformation, that IDC Health Insights identified as some of the key trends from the worldwide healthcare predictions that will particularly impact the European healthcare market in the next 12–18 months:

Business Imperative: Collaboration

• Adoption of 3rd Platform-Ready Solutions Will Continue to Drive Electronic Health Record (EHR) Investments

Business Imperative: Quality of Care

• Broader Use of Big Data and Cognitive Technologies Will Transform European Care Provision and Clinical Research Both at a Single-Patient and Population Level
• European Providers Will Need to Overhaul Their Digital Services to Ensure the Continuity and Quality of Patient Experience

Business Imperative: Compliance

• Digital Transformation Will Require Next-Generation Security
• European Healthcare Systems Will Get More Serious in Adopting New Reimbursement Models

According to Silvia Piai, Senior Research Manager of IDC Health Insights, "A 360-degree view of the patient is a key enabling factor for digital transformation in European healthcare, and 3rd Platform technologies are in turn making it finally possible, driving data accessibility and standardization, as well as, increasing organizations' reach and capabilities. It is important for healthcare executives to recognize that digital transformation is beyond technology — it impacts data, people, processes, and strategies. This report provides not only a view of the healthcare trends and their implications but also a comprehensive approach for healthcare providers' IT and non-IT executives embarking on the digital transformation journey."