Cisco India is in talks with smaller hospitals across the country, to invest in setting up networks. The move is aimed at cutting administration costs and improving productivity.
According to Jagdish Mahapatra, vice president, commercial (west), Cisco India & SAARC, SMB is the fastest growing segment for Cisco. Since 2004, Cisco has spent over $3 billion on R&D to develop customised SMB products and solutions that are affordable and easy to use. Cisco plans to launch 30 new products for SMBs over the next 12 months. ?We will continue to innovate, design and develop products and solutions for the growing needs of SMB globally and in India, and healthcare would be an emerging focus?, Mahapatra said.
Most hospital networks run more than 300 applications on an average. Patient information is scattered across disparate systems in public and private healthcare entities. This makes it both difficult and costly for healthcare professionals to share vital medical, clinical, and patient information. ?The Cisco Medical-Grade Network is an intelligent network that connects all of the stakeholders in the healthcare environment to a single information and communications infrastructure and delivers vital healthcare resources? Mahapatra added. Early adopters of Cisco’s healthcare solutions include Wockhardt group and Apollo Hospitals.
A recent survey has found that the emerging markets in Asia are accounting for an increasing percentage of the IT spending in the healthcare industry across Asia. They estimate that emerging markets account for 59% of the $3.4 billion in healthcare IT spending in Asia (excluding Japan) in 2007, and this is expected to increase to 64% of spending by 2010.
Cisco Capital already has over 50 customers in the SMB segment in India and is planning to expand its base to cover SMBs across tier one and tier two centres.
