The health services division of Siemens Medical Solutions has been named the leader in the European Hospital Information Systems (HIS) market by health markets analyst Frost &Sullivan.

Siemens purchase of Shared Medical Systems (SMS) has catapulted it into the number one slot in the European HIS sector, where it is now estimated to have an 18% share of the market.

Frost & Sullivan announced that it had awarded its 2002 Market Engineering Leadership Award to Siemens Medical Solutions in recognition of the company’s understanding of market and its focused drive towards becoming the number one vendor.

According to Frost & Sullivan the acquisition of SMS has welded Siemens’ expertise in medical hardware systems with SMS’ advanced healthcare information technology.

The analyst firm says the total European HIS market, which was estimated at €2,865.2 million in 2001, is expected to be worth €3,378.8 million by 2008.

Administrative data systems are expected to account for the lion’s share of revenues. In 2008, this segment is forecast to account for 41.7% of market revenues, with clinical data systems and integrated systems contributing 29.1 and 29.2% of revenues, respectively.