Ansari Gulam Goush, Gupta Rajorshi Sen
Department of Economics and Finance, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, K K Birla Goa Campus, Zuarinagar, Goa, 403726, India.
BMC Health Serv Res. 2025 Jul 1;25(1):841. doi: 10.1186/s12913-025-12984-3.
The impact of investing in information and communication technology (ICT) on healthcare sector is widely debated. Specifically, the question of how ICT influences the performance of healthcare firms in developing economies is understudied. This study, therefore, examines the impact of ICT investment on the performance of health services firms in India.
The system generalized method of moment (GMM) is applied on a longitudinal dataset comprising of 378 firms from 2000 to 2023.
The study presents evidence on differential effect of contemporaneous and accumulated stock of ICT investment on three metrics of firm performance: operating expenses, sales, and profits. There are three key findings of the study. , the accumulated stock of ICT leads to reduced operational costs. In contrast, contemporaneous investment in ICT is found to have an insignificant impact on operating expenses of firms. , ICT fails to convert the enhanced cost efficiency into higher sales and profits. This result highlights a disconnect between technological advancement and productivity gains. , advertisement and marketing (A&M) is found to have a significant, positive impact on the sales and profits of health services firms.
The study indicates that health services firms in India are able to utilize ICT to achieve cost efficiency but not strategic positioning in terms of providing differentiated, high-quality healthcare service. Hence, mere ICT investment cannot be considered a unique resource for the firms. It is imperative for health services firms to develop and promote inimitable value propositions. As firms must continuously invest and upgrade ICT to enhance the quality of healthcare services, they should concomitantly spend on advertisement and marketing (A&M) to improve the perception and brand value among existing and potential patrons.
投资信息通信技术（ICT）对医疗保健部门的影响广受争议。具体而言，ICT如何影响发展中经济体医疗保健公司的绩效这一问题研究不足。因此，本研究考察了ICT投资对印度医疗服务公司绩效的影响。
系统广义矩估计法（GMM）应用于一个纵向数据集，该数据集包含2000年至2023年的378家公司。
该研究提供了关于ICT投资的同期存量和累积存量对公司绩效的三个指标（运营费用、销售额和利润）的差异影响的证据。该研究有三个关键发现。第一，ICT的累积存量导致运营成本降低。相比之下，发现同期的ICT投资对公司的运营费用影响不显著。第二，ICT未能将提高的成本效率转化为更高的销售额和利润。这一结果凸显了技术进步与生产率提高之间的脱节。第三，发现广告和营销（A&M）对医疗服务公司的销售额和利润有显著的正向影响。
该研究表明，印度的医疗服务公司能够利用ICT实现成本效率，但在提供差异化的高质量医疗服务方面无法实现战略定位。因此，单纯的ICT投资不能被视为公司的独特资源。医疗服务公司必须开发和推广独特的价值主张。由于公司必须不断投资和升级ICT以提高医疗服务质量，它们应同时在广告和营销（A&M）方面投入资金，以改善现有和潜在客户的认知和品牌价值。
