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Business process outsourcing (BPO) has given businesses a lot of new possibilities in terms of getting the job done, and the healthcare market worldwide is no exception. Meanwhile, a new report from Technavio says that BPO in healthcare is likely to continue on the rise, reaching a height of $9 billion by just 2020 alone.

The Technavio report, titled “Global Healthcare BPO Market 2016 – 2020”, reveals information about several different BPO operations, ranging from human resources to facilities and administration (F&A) to even customer relationship management (CRM) processes. CRM was expected to make some of the biggest gains with 53.53 percent rises over current levels, the reports noted, but the rest of the field wouldn't disappoint, as HR made 23.65 percent gains and F&A hit 22.82 percent higher.

Hospitals outsourcing CRM functions are likely to lead the way on that front, as hospitals seek to get some kind of competitive advantage in what is already a very tight market. Given that the 2015 market for healthcare CRM BPO was around $3.87 billion just in 2015, big growth here is underscored by the fact that it already started out as a big market to begin with. With HR BPO valued at $1.71 billion in 2015 and F&A BPO running $1.65 billion, it's obvious slower growth will be seen here, but still very substantial. Hospitals' highly-specific HR needs mean that specialists will likely be required for much of the hiring in this field, making HR BPO a smart idea. Similar call for specialist operation, especially in the face of so much regulation, makes F&A BPO likewise smart.

Technavio lead analyst in ITO and BPO research Amit Sharma commented “Cloud technology has revolutionized the mode of outsourcing business processes. BPO solutions are hosted on remote infrastructure, managed by cloud providers, and categorized as BPaaS. Some healthcare business processes that are being enabled by cloud-based BPOs include payroll, F&A, contact centers, and specialized HR solutions.”

It becomes clear that BPO is poised for big gains in the field, and with good reason. The sheer number of business processes to outsource in the first place means that, even if each could contribute only lackluster gains, it would still mean a pretty substantial push for the overall field. If a room full of people bake just one small pie each, you've still got a lot of pie at the end of the day. Here, we're not even talking about small amounts; we're talking about double-digit gains being forecast for much of the sector, and some of these double-digits are pretty impressive.

To project gains ahead for healthcare BPO is almost like projecting the sun will rise tomorrow. Sure, it's technically possible that it won't, but given what we know so far, it's extremely likely that it will. With so many opportunities in play for BPO, its gains aren't really a surprise.