Healthcare providers to spend Rs 5,700 cr on IT in 2013: Gartner

While healthcare providers will spend maximum on 'telecommunications', 'internal' and 'IT' services will witness better growth rate

Healthcare providers in India will spend Rs 5,700 crore on information technology (IT) related products and services in 2013, says a report released by Gartner, IT research and advisory company.

Last year the same industry spent Rs 5,300 crore on IT and its related services. This clearly indicates, the spends increased by 7% over last year.

This forecast includes the expenditure made by healthcare providers like hospitals and hospital systems, as well as ambulatory service and physicians' practices. This would include expenditure that is made on hardware, software, external IT services, telecommunications and so on.
 
Expenditure in telecommunications will include spending done on telecommunications and networking equipment and services. According to Gartner Inc., telecommunications will remain the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the healthcare providers sector. The category is expected to grow by 3.9% in 2013 to reach Rs 1,720 crore in 2013, an increase from Rs 1,660 crore in 2012. Most of this growth will be in enterprise communication equipment.
 
While healthcare providers will spend most on 'telecommunication' category, the 'Internal services' category will achieve the highest growth rate amongst the existing categories. The report expects it to increase by a good 18% in 2013. 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.

After internal services it is the 'IT services' category that will achieve the next highest growth rate. The category on the back of growth in process is expected to grow by 9.7% in 2013 to reach Rs 1,450 crore in 2013, an increase from Rs 1,320 crore in 2012.
 
Rising demand from the growing middle class in India’s large cities is fueling growth in private sector healthcare. Health insurance growth will also catalyze technology adoption in healthcare provider segments," said Anurag Gupta, research director at Gartner.