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BUSINESS: CORPORATE HEALTH
CENTRES
Super Clinic Inc.
Private companies are setting up chains of health
clinics across the country that promise to bring quality to the Indian
healthcare system
By Supriya Bezbaruah
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"Today
the patient is a consumer with a wide choice. Our focus is on people."
Noni Chawla, Managing Director, Max Healthcare
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Patients as customers.
The idea will sound lofty to the harassed Indian patient used to a bewildering
blur of overcrowded waiting rooms, long queues, indifferent and overworked
doctors and umpteen diagnostic tests. So the Delhi-based teacher and author
Eira Mazumdar did not know what to expect when she recently fixed an appointment
for a general health check-up at the newly opened Dr Max clinic. She certainly
did not expect to be greeted by soothing classical notes in a cool, well-designed
lobby. Her medical details were registered into a database and as she
was led from test to test there was always a person to direct her. The
doctor spent more than half an hour explaining the tests that were being
carried out. Gushes Mazumdar: "Everything was well-synchronised,
efficient and friendly. They took personal care and made me feel I mattered."
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HEALING TOUCH: WHAT CORPORATE
CLINICS
ARE BETTING ON
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COMFORT: No more running around. Patients coming to a clinic are
immediately attended to and directed to the right person. Comfortable
lounges and convenient directions too.
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INFORMATION: Fortis Healthcare Limited and Max Healthcare will
have integrated computer systems in their clinics, allowing doctors
to instantly access updated records-from brain scans to viral reports-of
a patient.
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TECHNOLOGY: The clinics have tied up with global agencies to offer
state-of--art treatment to their patients. A patient undergoes fluoroscopy
(left), a new technique in which a dye lights up the abdomen.
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She certainly does for a slew of companies hoping
to revolutionise the Rs 60,000-crore private healthcare market by setting
up a chain of primary health clinics. Max Healthcare, Apollo and Fortis
are three companies that have already launched on this path, with services
ranging from basic vaccinations to surgeries-all in the local neighbourhood.
"Our focus is on people and on ethics. The patient is the consumer
with choice," declares Noni Chawla, managing director of Max Healthcare
which is investing Rs 200 crore on setting up 30 Dr Max primary clinics,
four large diagnostic centres and a general hospital in Delhi in the next
five years. Using Delhi as the model, it will then expand to the rest
of the country. The costs: Rs 150 for a family physician and Rs 300-500
for specialists. An X-ray (one region/one film) or an ECG will cost Rs
200.
While Max Healthcare has a bottom-up approach-moving
up from primary clinics to large hospitals-the Apollo Group and Fortis
are going about it the other way. Apollo, which already has seven super-specialty
hospitals across the country, has started franchised "Cliniqs"
in Chennai, Mumbai and Delhi. These will be connected to the main hospitals.
"The idea is to bring Apollo health facilities to the doorstep,"
explains Dr Yogi Mehrotra, senior vice-president, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise
Limited. While these clinics do not have long-stay beds, they will provide
basic diagnostics, 12-hour specialist doctors, an ambulance service and
night calls in the neighbourhood.
In the next few years, Apollo intends to have
more than 500 Apollo health clinics across the country. "We would
like to see our clinic in every district-level town. And the market is
there," says Mehrotra. Today many patients travel across the country
to be examined at Apollo. The clinics would ensure the same treatment
at home. The clinics also come a little cheaper than the hospital-a consultation
with a specialist costs Rs 300, an X-ray costs Rs 120 and an ECG is priced
at Rs 100.
Fortis Healthcare Limited, started by the late
Ranbaxy chairman Parvinder Singh, has invested more than Rs 155 crore
on a 200-bed super-specialty heart institute in Mohali, Chandigarh. It
will form the core of an outreach programme, eventually lining up a network
of multi-speciality medical centres in a "Hub and Spoke" model-the
hospital forming the hub, linked to several smaller clinics. All this
depends on a comprehensive Hospital Information System that incorporates
an instantly updated Electronic Patient Record. Fortis is affiliated to
the US-based Partners Healthcare System Inc, which includes the globally
renowned Massachusetts General Hospital.
But will the plushness of the corporate clinics
and their brand names be a strong enough attraction to wean people away
from trusted family doctors? After all doctors, like lawyers, are traditionally
known to have a relationship with their clients that goes beyond the bottom-line
considerations that big companies must have. The corporate clinics are
hoping to draw customers on two counts: a comprehensive database of patients'
medical records and the availability of state-of-the-art technology. At
Max, doctors' computers are linked with the Electronic Medical Record,
a system that allows all the patient data-from brain scans to viral reports-to
be instantly accessible to all its doctors. "Doctors are only as
good as the data they have and our medical system has all the data. This
gives us the edge, " claims Dr Nirmal Joshi, medical director, Max
Healthcare. Apart from an integrated system, Max is promising to offer
24-hour diagnostics, quicker results and a toll-free helpline for medical
advice. Some of the clinics will be equipped with diagnostic devices like
MRI machines specifically designed not to make the patient claustrophobic,
bone densitometers to detect osteoporosis, advanced 500 MA X-ray machines
and a crashcart for cardiac emergency.
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