Nova Medical Centers, a premium day care surgical center in India, has appointed Girish Rao as its CEO & managing director and Dr M G Bhat as its National director.

Girish Rao is also a founder board member of Self Insurance Institute of America’s (SIIA) and Disease Management Association of India (DMAI). He is a Member of Global Advisory Board of British Telecom, National Rural Health Commission and IRDA - Taskforce for health Insurance.

Dr Bhat, currently is a consultant Surgical Gastroenterology & Laparoscopy and chief surgeon at Wockhardt Hospital, Bangalore. He initiated laparoscopic surgery in 1992 in Karnataka and is now among the renowned laparoscopic surgeons in the country. He was formerly head of Department of General Surgery at the Manipal Hospital, Bangalore form 1992 to 2005. He has special interest in surgical gastroenterology, especially hepatobiliary pancreatic surgery and laparoscopy surgery.

Nova opened its first centre in Koramangla, Bangalore in May 2009. It is funded by The GTI Group, a New York based private investment company. Its primary business is Ambulatory Surgeries (day care. Surgeries). The business model is based on a partnership between the GTI Group and 30 to 35 established surgeons from multiple specialties in each centre. The GTI Group plans to develop 100 such centers across India over the next four years.

Each centre has four to five operating rooms and is equipped with state of the art equipment to undertake surgical procedures. The Pre and Post Operating beds/rooms are all equipped with Gas lines, monitoring Equipment, Defibrillator and are supervised by a duty doctors and trained staff. Although the focus is on day care surgeries, each centre has provisions for overnight stay including doctors and nurses. In addition to surgical facilities, the centre has outpatient consulting rooms and diagnostics.