This IDC study focuses on the investment, implementation strategies, and plans embraced by acute care providers in Canada. The use of IT in Canadian hospitals has increased in recent years but is still evolving from an IT portfolio that consisted primarily of administrative and financial applications to one that integrates clinical and administrative systems designed to address the continuum of patient care. Acute care providers use a suite of non-healthcare-specific applications to support the core administrative and financial applications and a suite of healthcare-specific applications to support the unique requirements of hospital and clinical functions.

Jan Duffy, research director, Health Industry Insights said, "Many acute care executives recognize that existing systems are unlikely to support the changes that are needed and that achieving a higher level of sophistication and maturity in IT use is an important issue. IDC's Health Industry Insights five-stage maturity model will help hospital executives to understand the evolution of healthcare IT, but IT vendors will need to ensure that products and services are designed to facilitate the extensive interoperability and integration needs of the acute care community."