The Philippines’ sizable talent pool of nursing graduates will attract a lot of investors to the Philippines, which is poised to become a global leader in the healthcare information management sector, says Josefina Lauchangco, president of the Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines. FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines–The Philippines is poised to become a global leader in the healthcare information management sector (HIMS) by 2016, by which time the local industry is expected to generate some $2.4 billion in revenue and employ some 120,000 workers.
“There are lot of opportunities in global healthcare. The Philippines has a sizable talent pool of nursing graduates … and this will drive the interest and will attract a lot of investors and companies to come here to the Philippines,” explained Josefina Lauchangco, president of the Healthcare Information Management Outsourcing Association of the Philippines (Himoap).
“We can be the leader because, one of things that most countries don’t have is a sizable talent pool. There are 250,000 nursing graduates and there is no other country that has this kind of workforce resource. One thing that we need to do is to (capacitate) this talent by creating programs that will provide them the necessary skills. The programs that we have now are very limited, and so we have to expand this,” Lauchangco said on the sidelines of the HIMS Conference 2014 on Thursday.
Last year, the local healthcare information management industry was able to generate $988 million in revenue and employ some 66,000 personnel. This represented a 114-percent expansion compared to that of the previous year.
Local players are thus optimistic of a 25-percent compounded annual growth rate starting 2013.
This extraordinary increase in industry size and value was attributed by Himoap to the emergence of the Philippines as one of the top global destinations for healthcare service contracts.
The Philippine HIMS industry was said to have seen remarkable progress since 2011, as service providers demonstrated a growing capability for offering more complex work.
Himoap said such rosy figures could open up opportunities in the Philippines to provide more specialized outsourced services for HIMS. Presently, areas of growth include the establishment of several providers, as well as providing highly specialized services catering to specific requirements in the healthcare industry.