KOCHI: Information technology has surely got a place in the healthcare industry. As healthcare equipment become more IT-enabled, Health Informatics (HI) or Health IT is one thing which has great business potential in the future. The size of the market worldwide will be worth $27 billion by 2019 from $15.5 billion in 2013.
The share of India will only be $0.91 billion (around Rs 6,074 crore) by then with a growth rate of 16 per cent. As major players in the industry, ZH Healthcare, Practo and Cloudex Healthcare Solutions are in the process of expanding the market in the country, the future looks promising. Compared to the total healthcare industry in the country, HI contributes only 0.35 per cent of the market. The overall Indian healthcare market today is worth Rs 6.68 lakh crore and is expected to grow to Rs 18.7 lakh crore by 2020, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.9 per cent. When the market grows it seems Health IT services will also expand.
“Healthcare is an area where technology can bring lifesaving impact to the human population. With increased internet access globally now more people have access to the tools and technologies that can make a significant difference in their healthcare. One major outcome of this technology advancement is the conversion of health records into digital formats so that it is accessible and, affordable to individuals and their doctors without hindrance,” said Shameem C Hameed, CEO, ZH Healthcare.
About 7 billion of the 7.5 billion population in the world had no access to the latest health information technology, he noted.
According to a McKinsey report, the total spending on healthcare needs to move up from current 4 per cent of GDP to 6-7 per cent of GDP by 2022. The hospital and diagnostic centres attracted FDI worth $3.14 billion between April 2000 and June 2015.
“The number of radiologists is proportionally very less compared to the imaging graph. This was making it difficult for patients to get radiology readings on time. We could fix the problem with teleradiology. Hence IT has the potential to change all the prevailing rules in the industry,” said Dr Sinewraz, Founder, Cloudex Healthcare Solutions, which provides radiology reporting services to hospitals and medical imaging centres online using cloud based technology.