An aging baby boomer population coupled with increasing frequency of home care services to other limited mobility patients has created a significant market for bedside diagnostic imaging needs.  This is accelerated by the new medical workflows where general practitioners and specialists alike rely heavily on imaging results before determining medical treatment plans.  The reading of this imaging data by radiologists and cardiologists via tele-radiology supports this workflow and increases demands for imaging of patients wherever they may be.

Most of these companies are young operations that have sprung up recently to fulfill the burgeoning needs of the home healthcare industry.  Tools and procedures within these organizations are not well established and are generally borrowed from other industries.  For instance, salespersons use the general salesforce automation tools such as Salesforce.com or ACT!  Orders are primarily received via fax, and until recently, some practices used slips of paper to dispatch technicians for filling orders.  Portable x-ray machines that use real films are still used to a great extent.

Being a young industry built on the shoulders on innovative entrepreneurs also means that it is maturing at a rapid pace.  Digital radiography, whereby imaging results are stored and transmitted electronically, is quickly being incorporated into their toolset.  Use of cellphones and wi-fi hotspots is becoming more prevalent in driving a strong need for constant communication and better logistics.  A sorely missed tool in this framework is an application to provide logistics control to better manage day-to-day operations and business intelligence to better plan for resources in the longer term.