'Healthcare providers in India to spend $1.2 bn'

Healthcare providers in India are expected to spend $1.2 billion on IT products and services in 2015 -- an increase of seven percent over 2014, according to a new report released by market research firm Gartner.

The report includes spending by healthcare providers (includes hospitals, as well as ambulatory service and physicians practices) on internal services, software, IT services, data centre, devices and telecom services.

"IT services, which includes consulting, implementation, IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO), will be the largest overall spending category throughout the forecast period within the health care providers sector," said Anurag Gupta, research vice president at Gartner.

"It is expected to reach $334 million in 2015, growing seven percent over 2014. The BPO sub-segment will record the fastest growth rate of 15 percent over 2014. ITO will be the largest sub-segment in IT services recording a 10 percent increase in 2015 to reach $103 million in 2015," he added.

According to the report, the software market is slated to grow 6.7 percent in 2015 to reach $102 million -- up from $96 million in 2014.

Vertical specific software (VSS), which includes hospital information system, electronic health/ medical records, health information management, patient financial management, and more, is expected to grow six percent in 2015 to reach $28 million, it added.

"The growth in the Indian healthcare ICT market will be driven by the private sector mainly focusing in tertiary specialised care, secondary hospital care and the government investments on core public health and primary care across several states," Gupta said.