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Medical, healthcare and pharmaceutical (MHCP) related outsourcing is expected to drive growth of information technology (IT) and business process outsourcing (BPO) companies, with these industries increasingly outsourcing high-end services.
This trend is not only pushing up revenues for the IT and BPO companies but also generating employment.
Traditionally, medical insurance claims processing and digitising patient health records (medical transcription) were outsourced to India. Today, IT and BPO companies also handle high-end services like clinical data analytics, biometric services and medical engineering.
Mr Vardhman Jain, Managing Director, Perot Systems-Business Process Solutions, India, said customers in the BPO space are outsourcing more complex, longer-term, mission critical projects.
This activity has made MHCP the fastest growing area for IT, ITES and BPO companies. Though companies did not share information on their revenues, they indicated that revenues have been growing by at least 20 per cent (year-on-year) for the last three years.
More jobs
Opening up of the MHCP sector is expected to create more jobs in future. A report by India Brand Equity Foundation and Ernst and Young said healthcare BPO will employ about two lakh people by 2008. Industry estimates forecast about 10 lakh jobs available by 2010, including three lakh in knowledge process outsourcing. At present about 20,000 people work in the MHCP space.
Graduates with degrees in life sciences including chemistry, microbiology, biotechnology and medicine are preferred. e-Knowledge Center Pvt Ltd has a team of doctors and paramedical staff besides specialists in 16 distinct areas such as cardiology and gynaecology. Cognizant Technology Solutions employs over 4,500 domain and technology professionals besides doctors, clinicians, pharmacologists, bio-statisticians and medical writers.
Other graduates with good communication skills and typing speed can also work in this area because companies train employees in domain skills.
For instance, employees of Ajuba International undergo certified programmes from the American Association of Healthcare Administrative Management. Such certifications have resulted in employees specialising within the MHCP area, as is the case with Zavata India Private Ltd.
Patni Computer Systems initially developed applications for medical devices and over the last three years has ventured into medical hardware development, industrial design, systems engineering and medical imaging. "Today we handle the entire product life cycle - from ideation to deployment," said Mr Ajay Chamania, Senior Vice President - Product Engineering Services, Patni Computer Systems.
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