Global healthcare providers and international investors are evincing considerable interest to chip in their expertise and funds in the Indian hospitals space. This could lead to a slew of investments into Greenfield projects and enable strategic acquisitions, said Dr. Ajay Bakshi, MD & CEO, Manipal Hospitals.

The current Indian healthcare scene portrays severe shortage of infrastructure and manpower. Insufficient medical technology installations, and inadequate utilisation of information technology compared to the western world is further hampering the growth prospects of the sector. The entry of global healthcare providers into India would see a transformation and would enable Indian hospitals to unlock their growth potential, Dr. Bakshi told Pharmabiz.

Although India is known for its home-grown innovations in IT software that are low cost viable alternatives to bring in the required efficiency at hospitals, the investments are found wanting, he said.

A visible trend across the Indian hospitals is the sharp rise in chronic diseases. The lack of infrastructure and poor awareness to early detection of high blood pressure, cardiovascular disorders, stroke, cancer and renal failures are disturbing factor as patients and their families are unprepared to handle the crisis. We are seeing the entry of international hospital conglomerates from Middle East like DM Healthcare, South East Asia's Sime Darby Group and South African Netcare, who are in India to provide the required infrastructure support. There is no dearth of funds for healthcare providers to access. At any point of time, there is a 15-25 per cent share of private equity and venture capitalists, said Dr. Bakshi.

However, at the macro level the issues are the high real estate cost, which impacts the economics of any hospital making healthcare to be expensive for patients in the country. But it still continues to be the cheapest in the world giving a fillip to medical tourism. For instance, cost of surgical interventions have not increased as a cardiac bypass of Rs.1.5 lakh in the 90s increased to only Rs.2 lakh in 2014. In such a scenario it is difficult for Indian healthcare providers to scale up, he said.

The sector is also not opting for overseas expansion and a couple of healthcare majors have also pulled out. Barring Manipal which has invested in Malaysia only because 20 per cent of doctors in that country have been educated at its medical colleges in India. By early 2015, Manipal is gearing up to open a 220-bed facility in Malaysia.

There are a couple of challenges before Indian healthcare providers. These include equipping doctors to handle serious and delayed admissions to save patients. Another issue is that patients view diseases in a transactional manner and treat the condition till the symptoms are controlled. Therefore it is vital for hospitals to embark on a preventive healthcare strategy insisting people for regular checkups to curb untoward expenses by neglecting symptoms which could be signs to the onset of a disease. Manipal too is now focusing on patient awareness programmes, said Dr. Bakshi.