Study: Medical automation market to grow dramatically over the next five years

Technologies for running diagnostic or therapeutic processes that free up humans from doing tasks--such as health monitoring kiosks, automated X-rays and surgical robots--are becoming an extremely hot medical market that is likely to grow dramatically by 2014, new research suggests.

The medical automation market should grow from $13.1 billion to $23.2 billion in just five years, according to a new study by BCC Research. That's a compound annual growth rate of 12.2 percent, researchers note.

The biggest share of the market should be therapy, which should hit $16.7 billion by 2014. Diagnostic and monitoring tech will hit $5.9 billion over the same time span, while logistics and training will hit $652 million. The growth rate for the latter sector is the largest, with an expected compound annual growth rate of 19.1 percent.

The report addresses a wide range of technologies, including automated lab testing and analysis, automated prescription fulfillment, automated medical imaging and automated medical training.

To learn more about this research:
- read this Healthcare Finance News piece