A World-class Healthcare Hub At Pimpri Chinchwad

The 500-bed 'quaternary' hospital with a helipad and thrust on medical tourism will be operational from July this year, reports Rita Dutta

As one turns right from Wakad at Pimpri-Chinchwad off the Mumbai Pune Expressway, a five-minute drive leads to the upcoming Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital (ABMH). The 500-bed hospital, located in Pune district of Maharashtra, is being built on a sprawling 13-acre land and on another three acres, near the hospital, stand 76 quarters for hospital employees. The hospital is nestled in a green belt zone with the murmuring Pawna river, just a stone's throw away.

The first impression is that of a colossal regal structure, especially if you are from Mumbai and not used to hospitals in mammoth wide-open space. With a built-up area of over six lakh square feet, and located in the richest municipal corporation in Asia, the hospital will act as a respite to the road accident victims on the national highway and Expressway.

Workers are giving finishing touches as the time for commissioning of the project approaches. The first phase with 150 beds will be operational by the end of July 2006. The second phase with another 100 beds will be operational in another six months and the third and final phase in another year's time.

Quaternary Hospital

Dr.Brij K Trivedi, CEO,ABMH

Dr Brij K Trivedi, CEO of ABMH, prefers to call this Rs 200 crore project a 'quaternary hospital'. Why not a tertiary care hospital? "It will offer advanced multi-speciality treatment along with multi-organ transplants and thus it is a notch higher than tertiary care hospitals," he reasons. ABMH is the realisation of a dream of late Aditya Vikram Birla, who wished to create a world-class healthcare facility in India. This is the first corporate hospital from the Birla group, which otherwise has 100-bed community centres in places like Nagda (UP) and Daleo (MP). Now, Rajashree Birla is at the helm of the project as the chairperson of the Aditya Birla Foundation.

A Hi-Tech Hub

Today, having the latest technology is what gives one hospital an edge over another. ABMH, which is centrally air-conditioned, will function in a film-less and paperless digital environment backed by cutting-edge medical technology. The 13 Operation Theatres (OTs) are equipped with C-arm, laparoscopy, anaesthesia, ventilators, intra-aortic balloon pump and even Internet facility. The cutting-edge diagnostic service will offer MRIs (1.5 tesla), 64-slice CT scan, colour doppler, ultra sound, mammography, echo, computerised stress test, etc. For three cath labs, flat panel has been used as the quality of image is superior to the conventional one. The OPDs have unique pneumatic tubes, which send blood and serum samples to the path lab through tubes, rather than waiting for the ward boy to transport them.

A high-tech ambulance, equipped with defibrillators, portable ventilators, suction apparatus oxygen etc and manned by paramedics, will be on call round the clock to tackle road side accidents, burns and other trauma cases.

"We will be capable of conducting complex surgeries for movement disorder, heart lung transplant and liver transplant, to name just a few," informs Dr Trivedi, who worked in Oman before he took up the reins of ABMH.

Aesthetic Design

When one enters the hospital premises, one cannot fail to notice a beautiful fountain under construction, meant to soothe frayed nerves. Near the fountain stands the three-storey out patient department (OPD) building, which has 65 consulting rooms and 30 procedure rooms. The basement is for staff parking and the second floor houses an auditorium, library and a terrace garden. In the ample space of the campus, visitors have been offered 250 car-parking slots and 200 for two-wheeler parking.

The OPD building leads to the in-patient department (IPD) building through a lovely atrium, which reminds of the one at Indraprastha Apollo Hospital, New Delhi. This atrium is dotted with a Japanese garden, comfortable sitting areas, bookstall, cafeteria and ATM. Entry up to the atrium is without restriction. "One can come to the atrium just to have a cup of coffee with a friend," Neeraj Kumar, Manager HR and Administration quips.

The five-storey (basement, ground plus three stories) IPD nests 13 OTS, wards, ICUs and in-patient facilities. On the terrace of the top floor of the IPD, a hi-tech helipad is being built. However, there are a few hiccups with this ambitious facility. "Hospitals in the West have two to three helipads. But here for one helipad, we need to seek around 20 approvals. We are facing difficulties getting that, which is sad as this facility is to help critically-ill patients. I wish the authorities use 'open sky' approach for hospital helipad," Dr Trivedi avers.

Reportedly, renowned urologist Dr Patrick Walsh of Johns Hopkins, on his visit to the hospital, has praised this institute as the 'Mayo Clinic of India.' "This hospital will offer integrated healthcare, more on the lines of a health city," Dr Trivedi adds.

Project Prattle

Apollo Health and Enterprise have orchestrated the space planning and design, while architecture was proposed by L&T, complying with the guidelines of the American Institute of Architecture. Hospital planning, equipment planning and IT procurement, along with HIS and PACS have been ideated by Dr Trivedi and in-house staff.

While project planning commenced in 2002, when Dr Trivedi was appointed, the foundation stone was laid only in February 2004. Asked about the six-month delay in commissioning of the project, Dr Trivedi confides, "The delay is because of lack of commitment from some contractors to meet deadlines."

How does this modern structure plan to avoid wastage of electricity and water, much in crisis these days? "We recycle our waste water for gardening. We do energy audits to use energy more effectively. Our light requirement is two watts per square foot," Dr Trivedi informs.

Matters Of Manpower

Manpower is the backbone of any organisation and hence recruiting is a challenging job. At ABMH, induction is going on in full-steam as it is looking at hiring over 500 people for the first phase and to grow to 1,200 people, including outsourced staff, when it is fully functional. ABMH will outsource housekeeping, laundry, kitchen and security. The hospital craves to achieve a 1:4 patient-to-employee ratio.

"About 70-80 per cent employees will be full-time consultant doctors and the rest part-timers. We will provide accommodation to key medicos and non-medicos in orthopaedics, trauma and critical care and gynaecology in our staff quarters. We are also looking for more accommodation around Pimpri Chinchwad," Kumar informs.

For employment, besides eyeing 30-40 per cent NRI medicos, it is focusing on inducting doctors, administrators and managers from Pune and Mumbai. But are Indian doctors, accustomed to the system of hopping from one hospital to another for consultation, willing to work as full-time consultants? "Why not? Around 90 per cent doctors that I have met are willing to work as full-timers. The doctors are stuck in the rut of part-time consultancy, quite against their will," observes Dr Trivedi, adding, "The response of doctors from all over the country and abroad been impressive." The hospital is inundated with response from NRI doctors from Canada, Australia, the US and the UK. Last Christmas, a posse of NRI medicos flocked to the campus for interviews.

Will ABMH be able to attract skilled manpower, as senior doctors and managers, well settled in Pune and Mumbai, may be resistant to change base to Pimpri Chinchwad, which is around 162 km from Mumbai and 14 km from Pune city? ABMH has worked a way through this hitch. "Yes, we know that the top-line is sometimes resistant to change, as they have to re-locate with their family. Thus, we are looking at the second line, who always look for an opportunity to grow," he reveals. Interestingly, he shares that doctors and nurses have been found to be more willing to move than non-medicos. Apart from staff accommodation for key members, ABMH is offering 20-50 per cent salary more than the current market rate.

Addressing Employee Satisfaction

In this age of high attrition rate in healthcare, ABMH has devised a well-thought-out strategy for increasing the work satisfaction quotient of its employees. Besides celebrating birthdays of employees, weekly guest lectures and get-togethers, the hospital holds yoga classes and Marathi-speaking classes every evening. It plans to introduce computer classes for all employees. "There will be performance checks and a constant emphasis on training," Kumar says.

In The Pipeline

The hospital has already planned to go for JCI and ISO accreditation, immediately after the first phase. "We have designed our hospital keeping in mind that we would go for these accreditations," Dr Trivedi maintains. This will aid the hospital in medical tourism, which is a thrust area for the hospital. Asked about the strategies to woo medical tourists and packages devised for them, Dr Trivedi replied, "Nothing has been finalised just yet."

In the offing are a nursing college, nursing hostel and a 100-bed rehabilitation centre. ABMH also plans to start a training centre of trauma care for young clinicians and nurses and might start exchange programmes with various universities and hospitals for doctors and nurses.

Sustainability Pangs

While the vision is grand, a couple of questions linger in the mind. Will the management be able to sustain the project, considering its remote location? Secondly, will it take a longer time for break-even for the same reason?

Dr Trivedi is undaunted. "There may be a few hiccups initially. But I don't see why we cannot attain break-even in the time that any hospital takes," he emphasises. The hospital will pump in another Rs 10 crore every year to add new technology, he adds.

He does not believe that the hospital's location will hamper its prospects. "Pimpri Chinchwad has a population of 15 lakh, which goes all the way to Pune city for treatment. Now, besides patients from this area, we are also expecting patients from outskirts of Pune and Panvel area (which is in Raigad district on the fringes of Mumbai). Additionally, what would make us click is that we do not have any comparable healthcare facility in the vicinity," he says. A market feasibility study found that there is a dearth of over 1,000 hospital beds in the area. To rake in profit, the hospital plans to tie-up with various corporate groups in the vicinity for health check-up packages and treatments.

As one leaves with a sense of awe at the sheer enormity of the facility, it remains to be seen how this corporate hospital would contribute to the upwardly mobile healthcare industry in the country.

rita@expresshealthcaremgmt.com