Hospital outsourcing market to hit $976.9Bn by 2034: Market.us

NEW YORK, UNITED STATES — The global hospital outsourcing market is projected to surge to $976.9 billion by 2034 as healthcare systems grapple with chronic staff shortages and rising costs, according to an industry report by Market.us. 

With North America dominating 65.6% of the $366.5 billion market, hospitals increasingly offload non-core tasks—from housekeeping to billing to IT support—to streamline operations and prioritize patient care.

Staffing crisis drives outsourcing demand

Hospitals are increasingly turning to BPO firms to handle non-core functions, from accounting to IT, either on-site or remotely. These partnerships—labeled as onshore, nearshore, or offshore—enable hospitals to cut costs while at the same time maintaining service quality through tight performance agreements.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the global health ecosystem will be short of 11 million healthcare professionals by the year 2030, and hospitals, in particular, will be put under immense pressure to identify partners to provide such critical services.

The outsourcing rates of healthcare IT presently stand at 28.3%, and the outsourced clinical services, including diagnostics and radiology, amount to one-third of the outsourced activity.

Outsourcing provides a way of addressing the limited infrastructure of smaller and medium hospitals that comprise 58.8% of the market. 

Cost efficiency fuels market expansion

An astounding 54% of healthcare Chief Financial Officers (CFOs) report outsourcing as one of their primary financial resiliency tools, and operational costs are reduced through non-clinical services, such as laundry and billing. 

The outsourcing contracts are dominated by private hospitals, which hold a 71.3% share, utilizing third-party vendors to eliminate the capital outlay on equipment purchases in favor of payment collection services and diagnostic relationships.

Meanwhile, bundled contracts—where a single provider manages multiple services—cut vendor coordination time, as seen in adopters like the Cleveland Clinic.

Outlook on hospital outsourcing

With chronic workforce shortages and margin pressures persisting, outsourcing is no longer optional but a strategic imperative. 

As IBM’s Watson Health and regional telehealth firms reshape care delivery, hospitals that fail to adopt these models may risk operational collapse, making the $976.9 billion projection a conservative estimate.