Dr S B Vikram, Managing Director (CEO),Vikram Group of Hospitals, goes candid and says that healthcare in India needs good capital infusion
What is your take on the Indian healthcare sector? How do you rate Indian healthcare when it comes to providing healthcare to all?
Healthcare needs huge investment both in capital and in sustained operations. Over the decades, private hospitals have sprouted in large numbers as the Government failed to scale up resulting in even the Government depending on private institutions to carry out the various different benevolent schemes. Trouble is that on the one side people see the cost of healthcare as prohibitive and on the other hand many hospitals are financially sick themselves! In this environment, to provide high quality care is not at all easy. So, people who can afford healthcare do have various very good options at par with the worlds best. But for the masses thats not the case. The good news is that Indian doctors are amongst the most skilled one can find in the world.
What are the IT investments your hospital has made over the years? How do you think IT is a game changer in the overall hospital operation?
IT investment runs into crores of rupees over the last decade. This is basic essential without which we cannot run a hospital anymore. IT is not limited to finance and accounts. Its a part of every facet of patient care both in the front as well as the back end. Patient safety processes are hugely IT dependent too. Accreditation by NABH or even ISO for that matter, is impossible without an active IT department
What are the top five challenges you face in the hospital operation and ution and how do you sail through them?
1. High cost of finance
2. Attrition among skilled staff (nursing, technicians)
3. Training of unskilled staff (housekeeping, security, etc)
4. Shortage of specialists (for tier III cities)
5. Recurrent investment towards infrastructure and equipment to fight obsolescence. Each of them has to be tacked as best possible within the limitations of the system and its an everyday problem. A bit of foresight and planning helps mitigate.
What is your take on the term affordable healthcare? What strategy do you think can come handy in making the term true for Indian population?
I believe that healthcare is very cheap in India as it were. Cutting corners is going to jeopardise patient safety. The need of the hour is for the government to come out with a slew of reforms: a) Subsidised electricity and water (commercial rates is what is charged while industries get a lower tariff). Reduced municipal taxes, the huge fee levied for no apparent reason for Pollution Control. Reduced VAT and remove customs on equipments and pharma. All these will bring down the cost of setting up hospitals as well as cost of providing care. Being a free market, they will all get passed on to the end consumer. Its time the government stops taxing the misery people are already going through!
What are your views on the regulatory issues of healthcare?
Accreditation is the way forward. Im not for regulating the prices of services, the market forces will take of that one.
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