Opportunities and Challenges in the Health Care IT Sector: The ShiftMarket Case Study

Abstract

The health care sector represents one of the largest and most rapidly growing IT markets in the world. Health care lends itself readily to IT entrepreneurship in a number of ways, but also poses some unique challenges. Many of these facets are illustrated through the experiences of ShiftMarket, a startup company developing and promoting technology-driven solutions for staffing hard-to-fill hospital shifts. Started without any external funding, ShiftMarket negotiated a strong beginning by pursuing technology transfer in collaboration with a U.S. hospital rather than building from scratch. At the time of this case study, ShiftMarket is facing some unexpected challenges and must re-evaluate its strategy moving forward.