India healthcare providers to spend $1.2B on IT

Healthcare services providers in India will spend 7 percent more on IT this year, forking out an estimated US$1.2 billion on products and services.

These include internal and outsourced services, software, as well as data center and telecommunication services, according to Gartner. Its research vice president Anurag Gupta said the bulk of the IT spend would go toward IT services such as consulting and BPO, which would climb 7 percent over 2014 to hit US$334 million this year.

BPO would see the fastest growth rate of 15 percent within the services category, while IT outsourcing would account for the largest spend at US$103 million.

Gartner noted that the country's healthcare providers would spend 6.7 percent more on software this year, to the tune of US$102 million, with vertical specific applications such as hospital information system and e-records accounting for US$28 million.

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