Indian health care industry is to become more “customer centric” than the present “patient centric” model feels Habil F Khorakiwala, Chairman, Wockhardt Group. The future of health care industry is moving in a direction where standardization and accreditation of care delivery is becoming very important, he said.
Speaking on the challenges and opportunities in healthcare sector at a meeting organized by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with Indian Healthcare Federation (IHF) here, Dr Khorakiwala said that healthcare is the fastest growing category of private consumption expenditure. Pointing out that 80 per cent of healthcare expenditure is in private sector, he said that there are only 25 lakh of people who are presently covered under the health insurance in the country. He said that the potential insurable lives in the country are 3,150 lakh.
The use of information technology, increased regional healthcare delivery, growing financial commitment of private sector, establishment of centers of excellence both in government and private sector etc were all seen as the future directions of the growth of Indian healthcare sector.
According to him, competition will bring investment and the industry will have to regulate itself to ensure quality of delivery. Khorakiwala also stood for the setting up of many islands of excellence, leveraging information technology and knowledge management to deliver finest health services in the world.
The change drivers in this development will be the scientific progress in biomedical research, technological innovations in diagnostic treatment and clinical information systems, changing clinical practices and also new institutional and managerial strategies that bring innovation to the patient.
He felt that the latest advances in anesthesia and in less invasive surgical techniques will broaden the scope of ambulatory surgery. “Advances in laser surgery, fibreoptics will enable surgical procedures to be transformed into “bioplumbing,” while advances in monitoring technology will produce enable remote signals to manage patient distress” he said. According to him, intelligent clinical information systems will become the hospitals operating core interacting with physicians and nurses in patient management particularly in ICCU setting.
Foreseeing a decade ahead, he said that the third party payment system is to be the growth driver. “Industry growth will be catalysed by private sector through FDI. Private healthcare will need 40,000 beds each year for five years to fuel supply. Delivery machanism will change to form integrated hospital-doctor networks and systems,” he said.
Indian healthcare delivery industry is worth Rs 660 billion, growing at 12 per cent annually. Per capita spending is Rs 830, just 4 per cent of GDP. He said that of the 15,000 hospitals 68 per cent are in the private sector. India has a total bed strength of 8,70,200 beds of which 60 per cent are in government hospitals. The number of medical colleges are 165 and 80 per cent of the registered doctors in the private sector.