Indian hospitals to hike IT innovation spend by 20-25% in 2-3 years: CII-EY report

New Delhi [India], September 11 (ANI): IT innovation budgets in Indian hospitals are set to rise by 20-25 per cent over the next 2-3 years, with nearly half of healthcare providers already allocating 20-50 per cent of their spends to digital innovation, reveals the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)- EY HealthTech Survey 2025.

The report, launched at the CII Hospital Tech 2025 Summit, highlights how automation in patient experience, clinical outcomes, and data-driven decision making is taking center stage.

Titled "Unleashing digital momentum to shape the future of healthcare - enabling automation to enforcing transformation", the report also flags the barriers of legacy systems, workforce readiness, and patient-centric delivery that hospitals must overcome to become future-ready.

When it comes to prioritizing digital investments, healthcare providers are directing budgets where they see long-term capability gains. Six in ten hospitals plan to invest in IT capability building, followed by BI tools and data lakes (50 per cent). Hardware upgrades and critical application enhancements fall lower on the priority list (10 per cent), while medium-priority areas include data management and cybersecurity.

Healthcare providers are also leaning into AI with a clear focus on enhancing visibility of clinical data and generating meaningful insights to assist doctors. Top priorities include AI for clinical documentation and data analysis (72 per cent), decision support systems (64 per cent) and imaging (60 per cent). This reflects a pragmatic approach where CIOs are choosing to invest in high-impact applications that enhance data visibility for clinicians, providers and patients, strengthen everyday clinical decision-making thereby improving clinical outcomes.

Adding to it, Joy Chakraborthy, Chairman CII HospiTech 2025 said, "For India to unlock the full potential of HealthTech, collaboration across government, industry, and providers will be critical. The next wave of healthcare delivery will be defined by how quickly we can bridge these gaps and enable hospitals to scale innovation without compromising patient trust or data security. The CII-EY HealthTech Survey 2025 provides a timely roadmap for healthcare leaders navigating a fast-changing landscape."

Reflecting on the findings, Ankur Dhandharia, Partner - Healthcare, EY Parthenon India said, "Our survey highlights both the current state, hurdles and ambition of India's healthcare sector and makes it clear that leaders have put in place scalable systems and are now prioritizing digital investments to create a seamless patient journey and improve health outcomes. When it comes to AI and analytics adoption, there is a clear shift reflecting move away from pilots to practical, scalable use cases that enhance efficiency and drive data driven decision making."

"Further, key government initiatives such as ABDM and DPDPA are expected to enable and accelerate this journey. Over the next few years, we expect to see technology in healthcare move from foundational to truly 'future ready' - where smart hospitals are patient-centric, efficient, data-driven and health outcome focussed," Dhandharia added.

More than half (60 per cent) of healthcare service providers identify capability building and IT team upskilling as their biggest digital challenge, underscoring the sector's need for a more digitally fluent workforce. Equally pressing are difficulties in integrating data and driving adoption of business intelligence (BI) tools, flagged by 50 per cent of respondents.

While hardware and network infrastructure and data storage and management are rated as moderately challenging, nearly 60 per cent of respondents admit to ongoing struggles with data management. Cybersecurity and patient engagement platforms are seen as additional pressure points.

Beyond technical barriers, organisational readiness is a recurring hurdle. Nearly two-thirds (60 per cent) of CIOs cite resistance to change among stakeholders as their biggest challenge, while 40 per cent point to the difficulty of integrating new applications with legacy systems. While internal strategies like training and effective communication can shift stakeholder attitudes, non-compatible core systems remain a major roadblock to unlocking full digital potential. (ANI)

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