Edward Milman, MD, director, MRI Services, St. Joseph’s Regional Medical Center, reviews and reports on images from a diagnostic PACS workstation.

The PACS markets in France and the United Kingdom are expected to grow dramatically in the next five years with large government funding allocated to technology upgrades in public radiology departments, according to a report published by market research firm Millennium Research Group (MRG).

"Unlike other western European markets, in France, the penetration of PACS is quite low; with renewed government emphasis on PACS, this market is set to take off," Basim Mansour, analyst for MRG commented. A pilot program with GE Healthcare is underway in France where, if proposals are approved, large numbers of public hospitals without PACS may look to purchase the systems.

Beginning in 2013, with the expected renewal of the United Kingdom's National Health Services (NHS) Radiology IT Project, all NHS hospitals will have the opportunity to replace their RIS/PACS. Hospitals would have the option of remaining with the same vendors or purchasing completely new systems from different companies, according to Toronto-based MRG.

While France and the U.K.'s markets are anticipated to expand by 2015, MRG found that the RIS/PACS markets in the rest of Western Europe are already mature, with growth expected to hover around 5 percent. MRG projected that the booms in France and the U.K. coupled with the steady growth in the rest of Western Europe will drive Europe's overall PACS market to $512 million by 2015.