InMedica Report Positions Acuo Technologies for Leadership Role in Growing Global VNA Marketplace

BLOOMINGTON, Minn., June 7, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Acuo Technologies®, the world leader in high-performance software and services for clinical content management and data migration, announced today that  InMedica, a division of IMS Research, recently conducted an assessment of the world market for vendor-neutral architecture, including a forecast of significant VNA trends over the next five years. The resulting 95-page report, entitled "The World Market for Medical Enterprise Data Storage – Vendor Neutral Architecture – 2012 Edition," offers healthcare providers guidance on the definitions of a VNA, the state of adoption in hospitals worldwide and the available suppliers. The report provides detailed estimates of the VNA market in 2011 and forecasts growth for the years 2012 to 2016.

"We are very excited about the contents of this report," said Shannon Werb, chief strategy officer for Acuo Technologies. "It shows a healthy and developing VNA market that is quickly moving to a billion dollars in sales revenue. The report shows Acuo as the market share leader among VNA independent software vendors (ISVs) and that we are well-positioned in both the onsite and cloud-hosted models within the next five years. Further, the report validates Acuo's channel model in controlling more partnerships than any other VNA ISV, including alliances with AT&T, EMC and Philips Healthcare."

InMedica defines a VNA as a comprehensive solution with a minimum feature set that includes DICOM and HL7 communication, support for multiple PACS, non-DICOM data sharing, clinical lifecycle management capability, security, and long-term archive and disaster recovery, and that VNAs may include an XDS registry and repository, web-based access and zero-client viewer. The report segments VNA solutions into five levels based on architecture (Acuo has certified and implemented all defined levels with the current release of its Universal Clinical Platform):

• Level 1.0 - Single-department DICOM
• Level 2.0 – Multi-department DICOM
• Level 2.1 – Multi-Site DICOM
• Level 3.0 – Multi-department XDS
• Level 3.1 – Multi-site XDS

In the report, InMedica recognizes three main VNA delivery models; including non-hosted, hosted and hybrid models, with non-hosted being the most common deployment through at least 2020 if the projected trend holds true. Some of the key findings of the InMedica report include:

• There were 75.2 million new studies managed by VNA in 2011 with a 5.4% PACS attach rate
• VNA study volumes are expected to grow to 568.6M by 2016, with a 31.7% PACS attach rate
• VNA sales revenue for software and related services in 2011 was estimated to be $29.9M, with $160.9M in sales bookings
• By 2016, VNA revenue for software and related services is projected to be $237.4M, with $1.5B in sales bookings, showing healthy market growth for VNA software and maintenance
• Length of VNA contracts is expected to increase as cost reductions from ongoing use of a VNA are realized

According to the report, ISVs, including Acuo, today hold a 39% share of the VNA market, with PACS vendors holding 61%. The trend, however, shows VNA storage exceeding PACS storage by 2017, with VNAs experiencing a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 49.9%, compared with only 5.2% CAGR for PACS.

The report also projects that XDS-based models enabling the integration of image and non-image data across hospital departments will account for 21.8% of VNA studies in 2016, marking a significant increase over 2011. This is fueled, according to the report, by an "increasing desire for cross-enterprise integration and particularly to optimize the use of electronic health records (EHRs) in all departments." The report states that XDS-based VNA models take image viewing "a step further by providing seamless integration of other patient records from the EHR with patient image records."    

Those interested in obtaining a copy of the full InMedica report can send an email to [email protected] or to [email protected].

About Acuo Technologies

Acuo Technologies, with headquarters in Minneapolis, MN, was founded in 2000 with the objective of developing the first enterprise-wide collaborative Universal Clinical Platform (UCP) solution for medical image content, both DICOM and Non-DICOM. Today, Acuo supports implementations of UCP around the world, including locations in Africa, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. For more information on providing superior clinical content management and data migration while simplifying operations and reducing costs, visit www.acuotech.com.

DICOM is the registered trademark of the National Electrical Manufacturers Association for its standards publications relating to digital communications of medical information.

SOURCE Acuo Technologies