30 Minute Interview

'India will make the maximum impact by 2015'

The IBM report 'Healthcare 2015:Win-Win or Lose-Lose' released recently indicates that the healthcare systems in the world will become unsustainable by 2015. Mohammad Naseem, Head of IBM's Healthcare Practice in India, discusses details of the report with Nancy Singh. Excerpts:

Mohammad Naseem Head of IBM's healthcare practice in India

What are the key findings of the report 'Healthcare 2015: Win-Win or Lose-Lose'?

The global study, conducted by the IBM Institute for Business Value, presents a comprehensive overview of the current challenges faced by the healthcare industry and provides a roadmap for transformation.

Firstly, it highlights the need for public and private healthcare systems worldwide to reform how care is funded, delivered and evaluated in order to reduce costs, improve care and help nations remain competitive in a global economy. Also, the study chronicles the current problems such as rising healthcare costs, poor and inconsistent quality. It also highlights the trouble ahead as these factors combine with a fundamentally new environment that is driven by globalisation, consumerism, demographic shifts, the increased burden of disease and expensive new technologies and treatments. Healthcare systems that fail to address this new environment will collapse, and require immediate and major forced restructuring — a lose-lose scenario for all stakeholders.

Please brief about the scale of the study.

I cannot provide data about primary sources. Secondary data sources pertaining specifically to the US, China, Canada, and Australia and WHO and OECD data for the rest of the world have been used in this study.

How would be the healthcare industry of 2015?

By 2015, new models of care delivery will generally progress from the traditional focus on reactive healthcare to a more proactive and personalised approach to healthcare, delivered by mid-level providers in variety of channels and venues located even closer to the consumer.

What according to you would be the USP of Indian health market in 2015?

India has the potential to be the most cost-effective (not cheap) healthcare market by the year 2015. This market will be characterised by world-class facilities for medical treatment to extremely well-informed consumers who are willing to take responsibility for their own well being.

What factors would be the main driving forces in the industry?

The key driving factors for shifting the healthcare industry into an era of action and accountability are based on:

Focus on value — Consumers, providers and payers will agree upon the definition and measures of healthcare value and then, direct healthcare purchasing, the delivery of healthcare services, and reimbursement accordingly.

Develop better consumers — Consumers will make sound lifestyle choices and become astute purchasers of healthcare services; and Create better options for promoting health.

Providing care — Consumers, payers, and providers will seek out more convenient, effective, and efficient means, channels and settings for healthcare delivery.

In terms of public-private players, what are the major changes which you expect in the market?

The Indian healthcare market is already dominated by the private sector (at least in terms of the number of organisations). The Government also seems inclined to eventually hand over the large hospitals it owns to the private sector through PPP initiatives. After which the Government will focus on primary healthcare and healthcare financing mechanisms.

What are the changes that you perceive in the alternative therapies market?

India already has a fairly large play in the alternate therapies market. Currently, much of this is in the unorganised sector—but this sector is gradually becoming organised. Another aspect about the Indian market is the presence of a large number of unlicensed practitioners or quacks. There are some moves to provide structured training and credentialing for some of these to beef up healthcare delivery, especially in rural/underserved areas.

In the near future, which country do you think will compete with India in medical tourism?

Currently, India is only a fringe player in the medical tourism market, though it seems to be making some high decibel noise. Most medical tourism today tends to be regional—for instance from the US to Mexico, from Poland to Germany, from Qatar to Dubai, from Bangladesh to India. Dubai, Thailand and Singapore are way ahead of India in the medical tourism game (even more so if medical tourism is measured as a percentage of their domestic healthcare market). India has a long way to go, notwithstanding projections about billion dollar revenues from medical tourism.

As per the current market scenario, which country will make the maximum impact in the near future? How and why?

India has the potential to make the most impact, due to mainly three reasons. Firstly, the large number of physicians in important positions globally, then investment in world-class infrastructure plus the high component of information technology in healthcare.

Your report suggests rethinking on the belief of healthcare as societal right versus a market service. Please elaborate.

One needs to balance the following: universal coverage for basic medicare with high-end treatment facilities for complex conditions. This will require citizens to take an active role in their own well being and healthcare financing mechanisms that include the consumer.

What would be the major drawbacks that will hamper the growth in 2015? How can we overcome them?

For healthcare to be cost-effective, information sharing is the key. Unless we create information infrastructure that allows various stakeholders to create, store, and share information, securely and seamlessly, costs of healthcare will go up on account of factors like aging population, increase in incidence of chronic diseases etc.

It is important that India invests in creating such an infrastructure, and IBM is already facilitating this.

nancy.singh@expressindia.com