Cloud Can Radically Transform India Healthcare Landscape

Zinnov Management Consulting has launched the study, ‘Cloud Computing: An enabler of IT in Indian Healthcare Sector’. According to the study, the total addressable opportunity for Cloud solutions in the Indian healthcare industry (hospitals) is estimated at USD 600 million by 2020. The study highlights that Coud can potentially address close to 40% of the total annual healthcare IT spending in India.

The study further reveals that the current healthcare spending stands at USD 54 billion and is expected to reach USD 164 billion by 2019-20. Also, the estimated annual IT spending within existing hospitals in India is approximately USD 191 million currently and is expected to reach a mark of USD 1.5 billion by 2020.

The study brings to light some intriguing trends that are currently taking place in the healthcare industry across the three service models of Cloud, i.e. Software-as-a-service (SaaS), Infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) and Platform-as-a-service (PaaS). According to the findings of the study, the SaaS aspect of Cloud Computing will create opportunities in software for the sector, while the opportunity for hardware and services will come from IaaS and PaaS respectively.

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Speaking about the study Pari Natarajan, Chief Executive Officer, Zinnov Management Consulting said, “The healthcare infrastructure in India is currently under invested with more than 50% gap compared to its global peers. This highlights an urgent need to scale up the infrastructure to cater to a population of over a billion. This opens up a huge opportunity for ‘Cloud’, which has the potential to radically transform the healthcare landscape in India.”

A preliminary assessment of the various hospital functions was conducted as a part of the study, bringing to light the opportunity areas within these functions that have the potential of shifting to cloud based solutions. These include administrative functions like In-house communication, HR/ Payroll management, Procurement/Material and Inventory Management of Drugs and essential supplies as well as revenue functions like Maintaining accounts, Healthcare claim data management and Billing/ Charges capturing. The study also highlights opportunity areas within functions like Capacity planning, Capturing of Basic care data and Clinical data, where cloud can be leveraged by Indian hospitals.

Speaking about the market drivers and potential opportunity Animesh Khan, Manager-Consulting, Zinnov Management consulting said, “Considering most of the Indian hospitals outsource their IT functions, ‘Cloud Computing’ becomes a natural fit. Furthermore, new regulatory measures are helping to augment the cause of cloud-based services and solutions for the Indian healthcare industry.”

According to the study, the opportunity for Cloud-based solutions among Indian hospitals lies across the cloud service (SaaS, IaaS, PaaS) and delivery model matrix (Private, Public, Hybrid). Across the three Cloud delivery models, Private and Hybrid Cloud are expected to find greater acceptance among large hospitals. On the other hand, the Public Cloud is expected to find preference among small and medium hospitals for SaaS and IaaS.

Last but not the least, the study highlights that Cloud-based solutions can potentially help in improving two aspects of Indian Healthcare services delivery- Lower IT Infrastructure cost and Augment service quality at less cost to hospitals.