NephroPlus CEO & founder Vikram Vuppala views that a single specialty healthcare business model can scale up operations only on its effective service delivery.
 
Although there are plenty of ideas to manage a single specialty healthcare delivery model, it is only a focused execution strategy that can enable a concept nurture into a successful venture. As India’s largest dialysis provider network , we have been aggressively working to scale up our single specialty network across India. Currently NephroPlus has 75 centers across 15 states in the country providing 50,000 treatments every month, he added.
 
Since its inception in 2009, NephroPlus has been spearheading a change in the way in which dialysis is done in India. “For instance, our biggest worry is the scenario wherein our 100th center would not breathe the same set of values and promote our culture. To ensure the cultural value is passed on to all levels of talent, senior management heads of single specialist healthcare models need to participate in hiring management teams because one bad apple is enough to spoil the whole bunch”, said Vuppala in his presentation on ‘Scaling a single specialty network across a diverse India!’
 
For single specialty healthcare providers, access to talent with complementary skills is a key advantage to build a high quality brand. In the case of NephroPlus, a relentless focus on patient-centric culture pervades to enable dialysis patients live life normally, encouraging them to work, travel and have fun, said Vuppala.
 
Creation of Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) and putting in place processes provides a competitive edge in the business of single specialty healthcare delivery. “If any system depends on specific individuals, that platform is not scalable. No matter who the individual is and what their capabilities are, system is always more important and adherence is critical. Therefore single specialty healthcare models need to invest in technology,” he said.
 
Investment in human resources has infinite return on investment (RoI), but in India despite its 1.2 billion population availability of skilled talent is scarce. This calls for hiring of qualified professionals who will need to be trained on specific programs to yield better results. Such efforts will not provide access to skilled workforce but also profit from personnel who have knowledge specifically required for single specialty healthcare business models since the training programme is specific to suit the purpose. However, one time training is not enough, to stay ahead of the curve and single specialty healthcare providers need to ensure their team remain up-to-date on latest advances, he said.