Healthcare Summit 2007

A Prescription for the Future

At the ISB Healthcare Summit 2007, top-notch experts pitched in a solution for a better future

Vishal Bali, CEO and MD, Wockhardt Hospitals

The Indian healthcare industry is on the threshold where it has metamorphosed from the era of small hospitals and nursing homes to the age of corporatisation. Healthcare, as the Mckinsey report aptly points out, would be the sprime growth factor for India's economy. Hence industry leaders' topmost priority today is to deliberate and chalk out a blue print for the future. This was the main theme of the ISB Healthcare Summit 2007 conducted by the healthcare club of the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad. The bigwigs of the industry were here to deliberate and present their respective solutions on the central theme 'Prescription for tomorrow'.

The event commenced with Dr Vishal Beri, Director- Hospital and Healthcare Services, Healthcare club, ISB, Sireesha Yadlapalli, President, Healthcare club, ISB and MR Rao, Dean, ISB giving the welcome note. This was followed by the deliberation session which kicked off with the Chairman of Max Healthcare Ltd, Analjit Singh's presentation on the 'Differentiation in Today's Age of Competition'. Singh lucidly put forth ways and means a hospital chain could stand out as a unique brand in an age where services and facilities are almost the same across most groups.

While industry critics are skeptical about whether clinical practice and management can go hand-in-hand., Singh was in the affirmative. "Hospitals should institutionalise their work practices and that will happen only when you focus on the whole gamut rather than on the micro level," said Singh. Customer interest will primarily be on the product and its services and to propagate that, word of mouth is the most powerful tool to boost the image of a hospital.

This was followed by Dr Kushagra Katariya, leading cardiologist and CEO, Artemis Health Institute, Gurgaon, speaking on 'Lessons for India from the US Healthcare Mess'. In the US, 47 million of its citizens have no health insurance, medical debts are leading to bankruptcy and tens of millions of people in the US are underinsured. "There is a severe shortage of healthcare professionals. Around 24,000 more doctors and 4,00,000 more nurses are needed by 2015 in the US. It is an overburdened situation there," said Dr Katariya. India he stated is a land of opportunity and the lessons which the Indian healthcare industry could learn from the US mess includes health insurance policies, focusing of public private partnerships and to create a way for preventive healthcare.

Brigadier Joe Curian, Group President, Global Hospitals Group discussed on 'Turnaround Strategies for Hospitals.' He mentioned that the five categories of risks which can ruin the health of a hospital are start-up risks, financial risks, operational risks, regulatory risks and liability risks. "Some of the common mistakes made by hospitals are that they do not understand business models, make a wrong survey of the market and wrong appraisal of competition," he added. The solution to this predicament was to arrest strategic erosion, focus on OP efficiency and the art of quality management.

The last speaker Vishal Bali, CEO and MD, Wockhardt Hospitals Group spoke on the importance of creating 'Value Experience' for the patients and their families. "Why do people change hospitals? What guides their decision process while choosing a healthcare destination?" asked Bali. He commenced by focusing on the competitive forces which operate in the market namely, threat of new entrants, bargaining power of customers and threat of substitute products. "The way ahead for any hospital is to create a niche in a society where there are similar surpluses, similar people and similar competition," he added.

The second session was the panel discussion on the 'Prescription for the Future' with Dr K Ravindranath, CMD, Global Hospitals Group as the moderator. Daljit Singh, President, Strategy and Organisational Development, Fortis Healthcare Ltd, mentioned, "A paradigm shift is essential by integrating healthcare with education, from primary to PG and beyond. Let physicians become mentors and coaches. We need to shift emphasis to counseling and education, patients-to-be should be the custodians of their health and there should be a perfect balance between personal and professional health."

Dr Nayan Shah, President, Hospital Management Services, Ambani Life Sciences Centre, stressed on the entity of managed care. "Managed care is a term with many meanings, it generally describes health insurance that attempts to control the rising cost of medical care with one or more of various methods," he said. Also in the panel discussion was Dr Hari Prasad, CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad and Dr Ram Kumar Narain, COO, Reliance Health.

EH News Bureau