Dr Selwyn Colaco has recently joined Cytecare Hospitals as the COO and will be leading the development and management of strategic clinical and business operations for the group. In an interview with Raelene Kambli, he shares his vision and business strategy for furthering the growth of Cytecare Hospitals
Dr Colaco, you have a background of being a quality assessor. So, what are the changes that you would like to make within the organisation to lay more emphasis on quality?
At Cytecare, we are building a common vision of quality. We envisage a cancer care system that is accessible, effective, safe, patient-centred and efficient. Cytecare will focus on systems and processes that will drive quality. Quality improvement is a proven, effective way to improve care for patients. We will look at opportunities to develop, optimise and streamline processes. Quality will be a continuous process and an integral part of everyone’s work in the organisation. Our aim is to sustain this effort and get NABH accreditation within 12 months of launch. Patient and staff safety is an important part of any quality initiative in healthcare. To build a culture of safety at Cytecare, we hope to build an organisation wide belief that harm is untenable. To build a culture of quality and safety, we are planning a number of initiatives.
One such initiative is to position Cytecare as a highly reliable organisation, one that although doing complex and risky procedures, is safe and reliable. Effective teamwork, good communication and shared learning are key components of this concept. To begin with, we are training all managerial and nursing staff on quality, accreditation, dimensions of quality and patient safety. They are being introduced to infection control practices – hand hygiene, standard precautions, bio-medical waste management and prevention of needle stick injury. These are some of the initiatives we have undertaken and these efforts will be intensified in the coming months after launch.
You will be leading the development and management of strategic clinical and business operations. What is your business goal for the group? And how would you achieve that?
Business goals are driven by the vision of the promoters. This focuses largely on outcome-based healthcare delivery and is based on building trust, through customer experience driven growth and transparency in treatment plans. This ethics-driven vision will sustain growth and close the existing trust deficit between the patients and healthcare organisations. At Cytecare, we will pursue a hub and spoke model for the development of centres to ensure access to a greater number of people. Financial goals are hence driven not by aggressively pushing numbers but by using a more sustainable model which is based on increasing through put by building a collaborative care platform that will change the way ‘Cancer Care’ is delivered. This we believe will enable the care providers to focus on individual verticals of care, built to support patients and their families fighting cancer.
We are confident that the clinical team will deliver care of the highest quality, and work together with us to help achieve our financial goals much quicker. We plan on growing the hospital by adding on spokes to the Bangalore hub; and growing the network by starting work on a new hub in the near future. We believe that people are fundamental to achieving business goals. And building an engaged clinical team, which together with a high performing management team will enable the hospital to execute its plans effectively.
Delighting our customers requires building customer profiles and measuring data across a wide variety of channels and touch points. This multichannel approach to address marketing and operational effectiveness requires gathering actions and data from every landing area in the consumer journey which begins with exploring options, expressing interest, planning the visit, managing the experience and ends with building sustainable relationships. To support this process, we have built a high quality, state-of-the-art IT backbone that is geared up to provide all necessary data. By learning where, when, and how customers are most likely to access care, and which products they are looking for, we can determine product offerings and design personalised campaigns to create value from high margin customers. We hope to optimise our marketing plans, define communication channels and manage customer experience that will ultimately define and build strong brand loyalty.
What strategy innovation are you planning to introduce currently?
The fundamentals of healthcare delivery have not changed, and it is still very important to have the best clinical talent available to treat patients. However, in addition to an excellent facility and state-of-the-art equipment; innovative and path-breaking processes are being implemented to create an integrated, patient-centric approach that drives better outcomes for cancer patients. This requires implementation of global guidelines and clinical governance protocols.
Being organ-site focused, our approach will be to offer collaborative care through a combination of multi-disciplinary consults and formal ‘Tumor Boards’ to deliver the right treatment plans for the individual patient. Driving growth also involves an unwavering focus on patient experience and Cytecare is focusing on several processes to provide patients and their caregivers a better experience. These include a focus on customer orientation, integrated marketing communications and branding strategies that are all part of designing a growth trajectory for the hospitals. A thorough understanding of the hospital customer will enable us to customise service offerings for individual needs. We plan to implement processes to manage both internal and external customers through a ‘contact centre’ which is quite unique in a healthcare setting. These will be supported by service verticals which
- Will help patients and care givers to deal with the psychological stresses that are a part of cancer treatment;
- Help those in the system who access care often to ‘Navigate’ through the their care programme
- Enable access to pain and palliative care services which will mitigate the pain and the many complications faced along the way. Rehabilitation and nutrition services, we believe also need to be strengthen, to deliver cancer care optimally.
What are your learning lessons while working with Fortis, BGS Global and Apollo? Any strategy that you would like to replicate here at Cytecare?
All the organisations I have had a privilege of working with are doing excellent work in their own way. I have acquired skills and knowledge along the way and hope to put that experience to good use. However, I don’t think I would like to replicate anything, instead look at building a patient support platform that will argument the strengths in clinical care. This will be a unique model and I sincerely hope that it will set the trend in cancer care and be something for others to emulate.
What according to you, are the pre-requisite for a hospital group or an individual hospital to maintain profitable as well as be sustainable in the long run?
Healthcare is increasingly driven by patients who seek the best clinical care. Hence, delivering good care with excellent outcomes is fundamental to a hospital and to that extent is non – negotiable. However, in the rapidly changing urban marketplace, price although important, is not necessarily the deciding factor. If organisations can deliver care that is of high quality with a focus on good outcomes, they will be able to deliver exceptional value to patients. In such a situation, price is not necessarily the only consideration. As the industry evolves, it is quite clear that success depends in part on strategies focused on customer acquisition, and more importantly on retention strategies through customer experience. Doing so requires an organisation wide focus on driving this exceptional experience. Even though this is central to customer expectations, healthcare is playing catch-up in terms of putting the customer first. The ability to change will be an important factor in determining profitability and sustainability in the long run.
The other determinant, as we all know, is the ability of organisations to manage costs. However, the big challenge is to do so without compromising on quality.
Any message for the industry?
We have made a quite entry into the cancer care space, and we are here to innovate and grow. We plan on steady growth and a sustainable business model. There is a dearth of research data and effective implementation and governance of standard evidence – based protocols for cancer therapy in India. Understanding this need, Cytecare will pioneer process-driven, organ-site focused, patient-centric cancer care. I am happy to be part of this transformational journey and our team will continue to monitor, develop, enhance and scale the overall operations of the hospital network. We hope to make a difference to doctors, cancer patients and caregivers that will change the dynamics of cancer care in the country.
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