Caring With Compassion

The hospital chain run by cardiac surgeon Devi Shetty has decided to set up a specialised health care unit at Birbhum’s Bolpur on its own after it did not get any reply from the Bengal government on a two-month-old proposal to set up such facilities in the districts on a private-public partnership. Narayana Hrudayalaya had submitted a detailed plan to Mamata Banerjee’s government on setting up dialysis units, diagnostic laboratories, cardiac catheterisation laboratories and coronary care units near the district hospitals in Purulia, Birbhum, East Midnapore, Bankura, Nadia and Malda.

After Mamata met Shetty in July and sought his help in improving the facilities at the state-run hospitals in the districts, Narayana Hrudayalaya submitted a Rs 24.25-crore plan to industries minister Partha Chatterjee in August. Asked why the state government had not yet responded to the proposal, health department officials said the PPP model was being given the final touches. “The policy provisions have been put up on the health department website to seek public opinion. Based on what the people say, a standard policy will be formulated in a couple of months,” a senior health department official said. Read more…

The Economist magazine has named Dr. Devi Shetty as a recipient of its 2011 Innovation Awards. The magazine named Dr. Shetty, who plans to set up a medical tourism hospital in Grand Cayman, as an award winner for his pioneering work in business-process innovation. Tom Standage, digital editor at The Economist and chairman of the panel of 29 judges, said: “Dr. Shetty has shown that better health care need not cost more. Better processes can make a huge difference. He is renowned for his skill as a surgeon, but we are recognising his additional talent as an innovator, by naming him the winner of our business-process innovation award.”

Dr. Shetty will receive his award at an award ceremony in London on 20 October.  Previous award winners include the late Steve Jobs of Apple; Bill and Melinda Gates of Microsoft and their personal foundation; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook, and Sergey Brin and Larry Page of Google. Read more…

Heidelberg Medical Services, an online health solutions provider with operations in India and Germany, has partnered with Narayana Hrudayalaya Bangalore, one of the largest cardiac care centers in the world, for facilitating heart treatment in India. Heidelberg Medical Services, an online health solutions provider with operations in India and Germany, has partnered with Narayana Hrudayalaya Bangalore, one of the largest cardiac care centers in the world, for facilitating heart treatment in India for international patients.

Through this partnership the company hopes to make available the services of Narayana Hrudayala to it patients and partners across the world. Narayana Hrudayalaya is a JCI accrdited hospital in Banglore, India with treatment offerings in almost every modern medical specialty. To name a few things that distinguishes them – they perform more than 1000 heart surgeries in a month, they perform more paediatric heart surgeries than any other center across the world, own one of the largest bone marrow transplant unit. Read more…

Winner: Business Process  Dr. Devi Shetty

After graduating from medical college in India, Devi Shetty trained in cardiac surgery at Guy’s Hospital in London. After six years, he returned to India to serve as the first director of a heart hospital in Calcutta. During that time, he operated on Mother Teresa after she had a heart attack and served as her personal physician.

In 2001, with $20 million in seed money from his father-in-law and the backing of Shankar Narayana Construction Company, he founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (God’s Compassionate Home) Hospital outside Bangalore. He was guided by the philosophy of Henry Ford: using mass production techniques and specialization to cut costs by achieving economies of scale. His flagship hospital has 1,000 beds compared to an average of 160 in American heart hospitals. He personally has performed more than 15,000 heart operations. The other 42 members of his team performed 6,272 cardiac surgeries last year, compared to 4,128 at the Cleveland Clinic, a US leader.

The sheer volume enables physicians to acquire world-class expertise. Dr Shetty has them concentrate on one specialty rather than serve as generalists in cardiac surgery. He says performing the same surgery repeatedly enables them to come close to perfection. Plus, he relieves the doctors of administrative duties so they can concentrate solely on medicine. Read more…