Inventory management and remote care drive mobile adoption in Indian healthcare: IDC Health Insights

ICT spending in the Indian healthcare industry in 2013 is estimated to be $ 413.4 million, a growth of 12.3 per cent over the previous year’s estimates, according to IDC Health Insights.

More details are revealed in the IDC Health Insights report, “Emerging Technology Trends in India Healthcare” which reveals the evolving business needs, innovative business models and revolutionary technology solutions in the country’s healthcare system.

Mobility will be the key technology in the Indian healthcare industry, with a high adoption rate of smartphones and tablets. Nearly 29 per cent of the respondents from healthcare provider organisations, in a recently conducted survey indicated that they have some level of clinical mobility in place, while only 7.6 per cent have a mobility solution in place, mostly in the area of inventory management and remote care within the healthcare organisations.

“While healthcare IT is at a relatively nascent stage of adoption in India, especially compared to the actual potential, there have been several instances of innovative implementations and best practices in India. The growth of the private corporate entities in healthcare has boded well for IT implementation in the industry,” says Sash Mukherjee, Research Manager, IDC Health Insights, Asia/ Pacific.

“This will also see the rise of other key stakeholders in the industry including the payer community and the life science organisations, when it comes to accountability and care coordination across the care continuum. Technology vendors should partner with healthcare providers and evaluate the key stakeholders especially when it comes to third platform technologies. Given the increase in Line-of-Business participation, emerging technology vendors need to be aware of the procurement as well as partnership patterns within the Indian healthcare provider organisation,” adds Mukherjee.

EH News Bureau