New Delhi, February 27, 2019: Despite many advancements in the past decade, healthcare is still a huge concern for India. India has approximately 1 million allopathic doctors for a population of 1.3 billion. Further challenges of acute shortage of healthcare infrastructure as well as regional imbalances in healthcare delivery worsen the situation. Increasing number of healthcare professional as well as healthcare infrastructure is a long term and high investment proposition. In such a situation, home healthcare is an immediate and cost effective solution to improve availability, accessibility and affordability of healthcare solutions to the masses. Home healthcare is in a very nascent stage in India. As per Cyber Media Research’s analysis, in 2016, home healthcare industry stood at $3.20 billion and is expected to grow to $6.21 billion by 2020. For a country of our size, the numbers still have a huge potential to increase much further. While home healthcare industry faces major challenges from the unorganised players, innovations by leaders are ensuring that awareness and acceptance of home healthcare is on a steady rise.
HealthCare atHOME:
Innovation: Standardisation
One of the pioneers of home healthcare in India, HCAH continues to set standards for home healthcare. They were the first to introduce ICU at home solutions in the country. They recognised the need to take their solutions to tier II and III regions and hence, have targets to expand to all cities with a population of more than 2 lakhs in the next few years. Moreover, their focus on quality led them to support Quality and Accreditation Institute (QAI)’s standardization drive for home healthcare. HCAH’s Co-Founder and CEO Vivek Srivastava says, “I strongly believe that home healthcare is an extended arm for hospitals. At HCAH we have always invested in maintaining high quality standards to ensure that we match flow of care from hospitals to home smoothly, comfortably and at a better price point for patients. Along with continued training for HCPs and advanced equipment, our most recent step towards quality maintenance is supporting QAI in designing home healthcare standardization norms.’ Promoted by the Burman family, HCAH has received investment from Quadria Capital to further support their growth path.
Apollo Homecare:
Innovation: Low price point
Apollo Hospitals have extended their reach to their patient community by offering home care solutions. Coming from a hospital background, they understand the key concerns of patient as well patients’ family. Hence, Apollo focuses on cost benefit as well comfort to the patient and patient’s family. Mahesh Joshi, CEO, Apollo Homecare says, “Homecare as a concept is gaining ground in India and the reasons are clinical and societal. Iit definitely works out cheaper to the extent of 30 per cent as compared to the hospital cost as there is no infrastructure and other overheads. This apart, the cost of a family member needing to stay off from work is an additional saving.”
Portea
Innovation: Comprehensive solutions at one platform
Portea is counted amongst the leaders in home healthcare industry in India. They constantly adapt themselves as per needs of the patient community. Portea is also fast establishing itself as the one-stop-solution for all clinical needs of patients at the comfort of patient’s home. Portea currently offers lab test solutions, pharma delivery, medical equipment rentals and sales, medical manpower deployment along with basic to advanced home healthcare solutions.
Critical Care Unified:
Innovation: Focus on critical care
CCU’s differentiator is providing home healthcare solutions to critical care patients through extensive use of technology. Rajiv Mathur, founder of the organisation says, ” While metropolitan cities have world-class facilities, the situation in tier II and III cities is not adequate to meet the healthcare demand. More importantly, for chronic ailments, there is no necessity to continue with long stays and go through the stress of re-admissions. With appropriate use of technology, high-quality home healthcare services can be implemented and expanded to cover a wide base of population in India.”
Care24:
Innovation: Holistic care model
Complete healthcare for patients requires support of multiple entities. In many cases, these entities work in silos, delivering their specialty of care separately. To add value to home healthcare solutions to the patient, Care24 looks at care from a holistic perspective by supporting flow of communication across different disciplines of care teams. “Providers are focusing on improving care quality and outcomes not only from a clinical perspective, but also from an emotional, spiritual, social and financial perspective. The goal is to improve the experience for the individual and leverage the potential for improved resource allocation and reduced costs.” Says Vipin Pathak, Co-Founder and CEO at Care24.
Continued innovation will lead to home healthcare extending the reach of quality healthcare solutions to all regions of the country. With industry leaders paving the way, home healthcare can revolutionize India’s healthcare industry.
Corporate Comm India(CCI NewsWire)
