South by Southwest, or more commonly SXSW, is a tech, music and film festival held annually in Austin, Texas. What started out strictly as a music festival has grown into a high-tech behemoth. Every March, Austin becomes a fertile ground for companies to reveal the latest and greatest digital innovations to festival-goers and the greater public. 

We’ve seen (and extensively blogged about) the rise of health care technology in Americans’ collective conscience, so it’s natural that it’s now a main topic of conversation at one of the country’s biggest technology exhibitions. In preparation for this month’s events, SXSW sponsors and organizers developed a list of the most poignant statistics relating to American health technology trends:

•Wearable technology has exploded onto the market, and companies are quickly adapting the technology to health needs – and it looks like that investment will pay off. More than 80 percent of consumers said an important benefit of the technology is its potential to make health care more convenient. 

•Electronic health records (EHR) are a logistical challenge, but could have enormous care delivery benefits, so how are they catching on? 71 percent of physicians have adopted EHRs, and 85 percent of those adopters have EHRs certified for meaningful use. 

•Millennials are keen to take care of their health via their smart phones. It turns out 71 percent of the age group want to connect with their doctors using a mobile app.

•Population health infrastructure is highly rated by providers. 70 percent of them report seeing tangible benefits to patient care.

•The move to the cloud marches on. Cloud computing is expected to grow 20 percent annually until 2017, at which point the size of the market will be $5.4 billion.

You can read about more trends here, but we pulled these highlights out to demonstrate the opportunity – even obligation – that CNSI, as a leading health technology company, is facing. We’re hard at work finding solutions to many of these issues.

Were any notable statistics missed? If you could ask a health technology survey question of the nation, what would it be? Join the conversation by following CNSI on Twitter.