Indian healthcare sector to spend $1.08 bn on IT In 2014

Indian healthcare providers are expected to spend $1.08 billion on IT products and services in 2014, a 4 per cent over 2013, according to a Gartner study.

The forecast includes spending by healthcare providers (hospitals and hospital systems, ambulatory service and physicians' practices) on internal IT (including personnel), hardware, software, external IT services and telecommunications.

IT services, which includes consulting, implementation, IT outsourcing and business process outsourcing, will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the health care providers sector.

It is expected to reach $276 million in 2014, up from $266 million in 2013 – with the consulting segment growing by 8 per cent.

Internal services will achieve the highest growth rate amongst the spending categories – forecast to be 18.5 per cent in 2014. Internal services refer to salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organisation.

The information services staff includes all company employees that plan, develop, implement and maintain information systems. Software will achieve a growth rate of 6 per cent in 2014 to reach $101 million in 2014, up from $95 million in 2013, led by growth in vertical specific software (software applications that are unique to a vertical industry. These are standalone applications that are not modules or extensions of horizontal applications).

''India is expected to continue various healthcare technology investments through large private hospitals and state wide eHealth initiatives,'' said Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner.

''Hospital information systems, picture archiving and communications systems, electronic health records and mobile technologies will be high on hospitals' agenda,'' Gupta added.