Arundhati Parmar

Frost and Sullivan predicts that the global healthcare industry revenue will increase 6.9% to $1.68 trillion in 2016, up from $1.58 trillion this year. The consulting firm divided up the industry into six sectors - pharmaceuticals and biotech, medical devices, medical imaging equipment, in vitro diagnostics, patient monitoring and healthcare IT.

According to this projection, healthcare IT is showing the largest percentage growth — 8.15% — in revenue and will grow to $53.1 billion next year from $49.1 billion this year. 

"I would actually believe that it's one of the most exciting times to be in healthcare IT but on the other hand, it's also one of the most pivotal and stressful times to be in healthcare IT," said Reenita Das, partner and vice president of Transformational Health at Frost & Sullivan, in a webcast on Thursday. "[That's} because US healthcare spending as a percentage of GDP is almost double that of any other nation in the world and there will continue to be a legislative focus on reforming the system, and IT is clearly in the driver's seat." 

Here is the breakdown of the different sectors by revenue.

While North America, Europe and Japan cumulatively will account for 72% of the market, Asia and Latin America are projected to grow at about 12%, much higher than any of the developmed markets, Das said.  

Arundhati Parmar is senior editor at MD+DI. Reach her at [email protected] and on Twitter @aparmarbb