Health care providers in India are expected to spend USD 1.1 billion US dollars (USD) on IT products and services in 2014, an increase of 5% over 2013, according to Gartner. This forecast includes spending by healthcare providers (includes hospitals and hospital systems, as well as ambulatory service and physicians' practices) on internal services, software, IT services, data center, devices and telecom services.
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 USD 300 million USD in 2014, up from USD 280 million in 2013 - with the consulting segment growing 10%.
Internal Services will achieve the highest growth rate amongst the spending categories -forecast to be 18% in 2014. Internal services refer to salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organization. The information services staff includes all company employees that plan, develop, implement and maintain information systems. Software will achieve a growth rate of 8.4% in 2014 to reach USD 98 million USD in 2014, up from USD 90 million in 2013, led by growth in vertical specific software (software applications that are unique to a vertical industry. These are stand-alone applications that are not modules or extensions of horizontal applications).
"India has a new government, and the Ministry of Health will closely examine ways to deliver cost effective healthcare across the country. Delivering wide access to healthcare in an affordable manner will be a top priority for the wider public healthcare system," said Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner.
"The organized private healthcare sector will continue its expansion across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, as well as niche sectors like maternity and child health. We expect emphasis on eHealth, mobile health, telemedicine, public private partnership and leveraging innovative delivery models."
