Express Healthcare Excellence Awards

The Race Begins...

The Healthcare Excellence Awards, hosted by Express Healthcare, will honour business innovation and healthcare institutions which have become monuments of excellence in the industry

For the first time, Express Healthcare (a monthly publication of The Express Group) is coming up with its 'Express Healthcare Excellence Awards' to be held in the financial capital of the country, Mumbai. To be conducted in early 2008, the award ceremony has been conceived with the primary intention of recognising and honouring business innovation and healthcare institutions which have become monuments of excellence in the industry. Reputed consulting firm Ernst and Young has been roped in as the official process advisor. The awards will play host to the top notch names and the who's who of the industry which includes CEOs, medical directors, hospital administrators, departmental heads, reputed doctors and medical specialists. Presenting sponsor for this event is Carestream Health, knowledge partner is Hosmac India Private Ltd, gold sponsor is Beckman Coulter India Pvt Ltd and co-sponsors are 21st Century Healthcare Solution and Esaote India.

The Sunshine Industry

Healthcare is the emerging 'sunshine industry' for the Indian economy. It has been analysed that within the next few years, it will be one of the chief drivers for Indian economy on a macro level. According the FICCI-Ernst & Young study (January 2007), the Indian healthcare industry is well poised to grow at a CAGR of 15 per cent, with the private sector being responsible for almost 90 per cent of the growth. The key drivers being a strong domestic economy, increasing literacy rates, increasing public health awareness, increase in lifestyle diseases and recognition by the government of healthcare as a priority sector.

The same report further mentions that private hospitals are expected to rake in $35.9 billion (Rs 1,50,000 crore) in 2012 compared to $15.5 billion (Rs 6,500 crore) in 2006.

Why the Awards

These awards is but a forum to salute those visionaries who have contributed to the skyrocketing growth of the industry—to make the impossible possible. Whilst awards were a prerogative for other sectors and industries, the 'Express Healthcare Excellence Awards' will be a voice for an industry which was so far overlooked and not given its due. Moreover, Express Healthcare is a publication which has always been appreciated by the industry experts—for being the voice for the industry.

The Categories

The awards will be tapping a vast array of verticals in the industry. Nominations zeroed on will encompass categories both for individual and group hospitals. The categories where both individual and group hospitals can apply are:

• Innovative Marketing Practices
• Innovative Business Models
• Sustained Growth
• Inspirational Workplace - Best HR Practices
• Corporate Social Responsibility - Taking Healthcare to the Masses
• Leveraging Global Opportunity
• Best Managed Healthcare Programme (Health Insurance / TPA Management)

The categories where individual hospital within a group can apply are:

• Excellence in Patient Care
• Operational Excellence
• Overall Best Hospital of the Year

We also have the Editor's Choice Awards for:

• Lifetime Achievement Award of the Year
• Most Promising Start-up of the Year
• Innovation in Surgery
• Best CEO of the Year

A cursory glance at the categories—sustained growth, innovative marketing practices, business models, best HR practices, corporate social responsibility (CSR), global opportunity and health insurance (best managed healthcare programmed)—all lead to one eye-opening conclusion - the shift of perspective from a more treatment-based structure to a skeleton which has also included management practices in its purview.

We are not for one moment indicating that treatment practices and facilities have taken the backseat, but merely stressing on the important fact that hospital management has an important ingredient, a foundation on which the entire superstructure is based.

Healthcare has changed and definitely for the better. The 'Express Healthcare Excellence Awards' have been conceived by the group to felicitate the change, the transition from being a drop in the humongous ocean to the stage of being the ocean itself.

The awards is aimed to cater to all types of hospitals which includes not just corporate hospitals but even trust-run, government and public hospitals. Hospitals are given the discretion to participate in more than one category, provided that they subscribe to the allopathic system of medicine.

"Apart from the recognition that these awards will help bring out, it is a platform to promote the cause of the healthcare industry" - Dr K Ravindranath Chairman and Managing Director Global Hospitals	"An award show is always an amalgamation of experts from the industry, so this will definitely help in the cross exchange of ideas and knowledge" - Vishal Bali, CEO and MD Wockhardt Hospitals Group
"It will be a bar for hospitals to improve their manpower and inculcate the concept of quality" - Suyash Borar CEO, BM Birla Heart Research Centre, Kolkata	"It is a great idea and concept, and it will definitely be an impetus for people to aim for the best" - Dr PVA Mohandas Chairman, MIOT Hospitals, Chenna
"It is a good thing to know what other hospital are doing. These awards will be the apt medium" - Dr Hari Prasad CEO, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad	"Apart from being a motivating factor, these awards will definitely be a platform of recognition for an industry which is fast growing in the recent years" - Brigadier Joe Curian, President Global Hospitals Group

The Protocol

The forms are to be distributed to hospitals where the CEO and Chairman and MD will have to rate and put in their nominations in different categories enlisted in the forms.

The protocol entails that each participation form (one award per category) be signed by at least two experts from the organisation which includes the managing director, the CEO, the CFO, COO or board of directors from the hospital.

An important point to bear in mind again—every minute detail and piece of information matters to our jury members, which will comprise the creme de la crème of experts and consultants from the industry. The hospital will have to fill in information right from the revenue break up across all specialities of the hospital, to the number of beds, number of employees, number of resident doctors, number of consultants of payroll or fee for service basis, number of patients in the year 2006-2007, both from the domestic and international front.

Our nomination forms also include filling in details for the value added services which includes whether hospitals have the provision of a 24-hour coffee shop or refreshment for visitors, whether visitors are attended by an attendant helpdesk and as to whether attendants can communication in more than one language, pharmacy and medical stores.

Hence, participate in the awards by first filling up the nomination forms.

EH News Bureau