New Delhi, Jun 20 (IANS): Healthcare providers in India are expected to spend $1.2 billion on information technology (IT) products and services this year -- an increase of 3.4 per cent over 2015 -- a report said on Monday.

“Healthcare spending is expected to reach $339 million in 2016, growing 5.2 per cent over 2015,” said Moutusi Sau, principal research analyst at a global market research firm Gartner.

IT services, which includes consulting, software support, implementation, hardware, IT outsourcing (ITO) and business process outsourcing (BPO), will continue to be the largest overall spending category within the healthcare providers sector.

“The BPO sub-segment will record the fastest growth rate of 15.4 per cent over 2015. ITO will be the largest sub-segment in IT services recording a 7.5 per cent increase in 2016 to reach $107 million in 2016,” Sau added.

The software market will grow 6 per cent in 2016 to reach $106 million, up from $100 million in 2015. Infrastructure will grow 4.5 per cent in 2016 to reach $43 million.

The forecast includes spending by healthcare providers (includes hospitals, hospital systems, nursing and residential care and university hospitals) on internal services, software, IT services, data centre systems, devices and telecom services for 43 countries.