Indian Healthcare Providers to Spend $1.1 Billion on IT in 2014: Gartner

Healthcare providers in India are expected to spend $1.1 billion (roughly Rs. 6,700 crores) on information technology products and services in 2014, an increase of 5 percent over 2013, Gartner said here Monday.

This forecast includes spending by healthcare providers, hospitals and hospital systems, as well as ambulatory service and physicians' practices, on internal services, software, IT services, data centre, devices and telecom services, Gartner said in a statement.

"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 healthcare providers sector. It is expected to reach $300 million (roughly Rs. 1,800 crores) in 2014, up from $280 million (roughly Rs. 1,700 crores) in 2013 - with the consulting segment growing 10 percent," it said.

"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 II and tier III 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," he added.

Internal services will achieve the highest growth rate amongst the spending categories - forecast to be 18 percent in 2014. Internal services refer to salaries and benefits paid to the information services staff of an organization.

Software will achieve a growth rate of 8.4 percent in 2014 to reach $98 million (roughly Rs. 600 crores) in 2014, up from $90 million (roughly Rs. 550 crores) in 2013, led by growth in vertical specific software, the statement said.