The ‘IT in the Healthcare Industry - Emerging Trends and Market Opportunities in India’ report from Springboard Research shows that the Indian healthcare IT spending is to grow from $ 274.2 million in 2009 to $ 609.5 million in 2013. “The spending on basic computing products is expected to increase over the next five years, as hospitals build and upgrade their IT infrastructure”, noted Tulika Sheel, Analyst, Vertical Industries at Springboard Research. “Moreover, with new and upcoming applications such as telemedicine and e-prescriptions penetrating the healthcare vertical in India, IT investments on software would further increase with a focus on integrated billing and online availability of patient records across hospitals”, she added.

According to the report, 23 percent of the healthcare respondents who currently use or plan to use Cloud Computing cited “reduced hardware infrastructure costs” as well as “simplified resource and server provisioning” as the primary reasons for adoption. At the same time, factors that are delaying the adoption of Cloud Computing in the industry are high initial investment, integration with existing systems and lack of knowledge. The report states that Healthcare Information System (HIS) is the largest IT solution implemented in healthcare and drives majority of the tier 1 private enterprise investments, with majority of respondents citing implementing HIS.

Another 28 percent of respondents stated Process Automation and Business Alignment, and Integration (within and outside of the organization) to be their primary pain point, overruling concerns over data management and storage. “Vendors in the healthcare vertical should look to offer industry specific solution including back-end and front-end applications and involve clinical members to actively participate and understand the solution and its impact on the hospitals for better clinical services,” said Nilotpal Chakravarti, Research Manager, Vertical Industries at Springboard Research.