A beacon of progress

Indian healthcare, at the onset of the 80s, was defined by its limitations. There was the limitation of access – of affordability. Clinical excellence was an alien concept, there was a severe manpower crunch, and the brain drain of Indian doctors was more severe than ever. It was in this shaky environment that Apollo Hospitals laid its bedrock. Over three decades, Apollo Hospitals has revolutionised healthcare delivery in India.

Apollo Hospitals has carried the torch of healthcare to distant corners of India, through innovation, technology and commitment. The group’s global leadership emanates from its thought leadership, which began with its mission statement: “Our mission is to bring healthcare of international standards within the reach of every individual. We are committed to the achievement and maintenance of excellence in education, research and healthcare for the benefit of humanity.”

Apollo Hospitals has been a forerunner in integrated healthcare in Asia, as well as globally. The group’s futuristic vision has ensured it a position of strength at every touchpoint of the healthcare delivery chain. A burning desire to make world-class medical facilities available in India spurred Dr Prathap C Reddy, the Founder-Chairman of the Apollo Hospitals Group, to pioneer India’s first corporate hospital – Apollo Hospitals Chennai – in 1983. The organisation today has three decades of rich experience in the healthcare sector and numerous firsts to its credit.

Business with an intrinsic social conscience best describes the Apollo Hospitals model. It evolved from the group’s first act of social responsibility – which was to introduce international quality healthcare in India, at a cost that was a fraction of that in the western world. With patient-centricity at the core, Apollo’s model has grown into an integrated healthcare entity with a presence across pivotal touchpoints in the healthcare delivery chain. Its model includes hospitals, family clinics, pharmacies, cutting edge research programmes, global clinical trials, education, wellness, consulting, business process operations and healthcare IT services.

From the heart
The Apollo story began with the heart. 130,000 cardiac surgeries, and several pioneering milestones later, the tryst continues unabated. Apollo Cardiac Care continues to lead by example. The Apollo Hospitals Centre of Cardiology and Cardiothoracic Surgery is among the largest cardiovascular groups in the world. Cardiac sciences, oncology, neurosciences, orthopaedics, critical care and multi-organ transplantation are the dominant specialities. The focus has led to greater investments in building clinical acumen, prowess and in training health manpower across these domains.

Excellence at Apollo Hospitals is a continuous journey. Diverse as the group may be in its locations and facilities, the zeal to excel is the common thread that binds all its hospitals. Apollo Hospitals continuously strives towards improving its structures and processes to achieve the best outcomes for its patients. This drive to excel in the fast-changing world of medicine leads Apollo Hospitals from one quality improvement initiative to another.

Apollo Hospitals has eight JCI (Joint Commission International) accredited hospitals. The JCI is a US-based accreditation body dedicated to improving healthcare quality and safety around the world. In 2012, Apollo Hospitals’ solid organ transplant programme became the world’s busiest by performing 1,200 solid organ transplants (360 liver and 840 kidneys) in a calendar year.

India may soon become the heart disease capital of the world

Robotics is fast emerging as a major game-changer in modern healthcare delivery. Keeping this in mind, Apollo has set up the Apollo Institute of Robotic Surgery in collaboration with Vattikutti Foundation of Detroit. The facility offers the Da Vinci Si surgical system – the most advanced platform for minimally invasive surgery available. This multi-speciality, multi-modality institute offers robot-assisted surgeries of world-class standards at costs that are just a fraction of what is charged in advanced nations.

A function of the impact
Apollo Hospitals has taken the spirit of leadership well beyond business metrics. It has embraced the onus of keeping India healthy. India may soon become the heart disease capital of the world if the surge of lifestyle diseases goes unchecked. Recognising the risk of heart disease can be significantly reduced, even reversed, the Apollo Hospitals Group had launched the path-breaking Billion Hearts Beating campaign, which empowers Indians through the knowledge of how to fight heart disease. A national multimedia campaign, it continues to spread awareness of the risks associated with heart disease and how they can be combated.

An awareness drive, Billion Hearts Beating seeks to get Indians to address a healthcare epidemic that grows larger by the day. The objective of the campaign is two-fold – to educate the populace about the real threat the nation faces, and to inspire people to take positive action by adopting lifestyle changes. Over 4,500,000 individuals have  already taken the pledge.

Cognisant that no nation can bear the burden if all its people fall ill, and that preventive healthcare can help mitigate the disease burden, Apollo Hospitals pioneered the concept of a ‘master health check’ over 30 years ago and it has since been emulated by many healthcare providers across the country. Over 7.5 million health checks have been performed at Apollo Hospitals. Responsible leadership will continue to epitomise Apollo Hospitals. The group has earmarked huge resources to power the next wave of clinical brilliance through empowered education programmes and extensive research.

Healthcare needs professionals 
Apollo Hospitals pioneered the reverse brain drain in India and slowed the flight of doctors. The group encourages doctors to work together with models such as the cohorting of patients and group practice. It has a continuous review of clinical outcomes, with path-breaking assessment systems such as ACE 25. A keen eye, and accreditation from third parties such as the JCI, NABH and NABL have helped the teams focus on quality and continuous improvements. The organisation has a rigorous system for assimilating all learnings. They are shared, and the template for hospitals is improvised and enhanced regularly.

Medical education definitely needs a boost to align itself with the healthcare of tomorrow. To meet this challenge, a vertical focused exclusively on healthcare education has been created. For post-graduate medical education, Apollo Hospitals offers Diplomate of National Boards programmes across 12 hospitals in 12 super-specialities, and has 205 seats, 600 students and over 440 postgraduate trainees. There are courses with the University of Queensland, University of Sydney, Royal College of General Practitioners, Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation, and Indira Gandhi National Open University.

Specialised courses for paramedics, nurses, physiotherapists and hospital administrators are a focus area as well. A core goal is to develop skilled human health resources, and the Apollo Hospitals Group currently has eight nursing colleges, three nursing schools, two management institutes, a physiotherapy college and 15 paramedical programmes affiliated to state medical universities under its not-for-profit organisations – Apollo Hospitals Educational Trust, Chennai and Apollo Hospitals Educational Research Foundation, Hyderabad.  Apollo Hospitals Group has also partnered with the National Skill Development Corporation.

The group has been running programmes to train paramedical personnel, including emergency medical technicians and laboratory technicians. Apollo Hospitals Educational and Research Foundation (AHERF) offers a diploma in Family Medicine and a diploma in Emergency Medicine, both of which are certified by the UK’s Royal College of General Practitioners. AHERF receives online support for its programmes from Medvarsity Online Limited. Medvarsity has developed over 1,500 hours of medical content in-house, which is accessible by the medical community anytime and anywhere.

The research division of AHERF undertakes diverse projects in areas covering basic research, epidemiological research, clinical trials and clinical research. AHERF has the largest site management programme in India and has completed over 650 global multi-centric clinical trials. Apollo Hospitals is developing an advanced Knowledge City in Chittoor, Andhra Pradesh. The state-of-the-art centre is being designed to train 2,000 learners at one time. As an integrated facility, it will have simulation labs, classrooms, a hospital, a medical college, and residential facilities, and aims to train 25,000 skilled healthcare workers per year.

Innovative solutions
Across every hospital project the bed configuration is planned to mimic the demographic profile. This is critical as the business model focuses on cross subsidisation – the mix of general ward beds to deluxe beds – to facilitate the economics of the more affluent patient paying for the financially challenged patient. This aspect has kept Apollo Hospitals sustainable, scalable and easily replicable. Apollo Reach Hospitals takes the principle of cross subsidisation to Tier-II and III towns. Apollo Hospitals was the only healthcare organisation in the world to be declared a winner in the G20 Challenge on Inclusive Business Innovation.

Apollo Hospitals has always believed in supplementing commitment with smart thinking and disruptive innovations to create a collaborative ecosystem in which quality healthcare cascades to every individual. Right from the first step of introducing world-class healthcare at a fraction of the cost in the western world, Apollo has forged a rich legacy of social initiatives that help transcend barriers.

A fine example is SACHi (Save a Child’s Heart Initiative), a community service initiative with the aim of providing quality paediatric cardiac care and financial support to children from underprivileged sections of society suffering from heart diseases. SACHi aims to provide early diagnosis, treatment, surgery, post-operative care and financial support to children from economically weak sections of society. Over 60,000 underprivileged children have been screened for cardiac disease and surgeries have been performed on over 5,000. The initiative is driven by the passion of some of the finest paediatric cardiologists and cardiothoracic surgeons in the country.

SAHI (Society to Aid the Hearing Impaired) similarly helps poor children with hearing impairment. The CURE Foundation, meanwhile, is an initiative to create consciousness of cancer prevention, early detection, cure and rehabilitation – especially among the needy. DISHA takes healthcare to remote regions in the country.

Taking years of healthcare prowess outside the finite borders, Apollo Telemedicine Networking Foundation is a healthcare model for a borderless world. With 125 telemedicine centres across nine countries, Apollo views telemedicine not as a specialty, but as a healthcare delivery system (a synergy of clinical administrative and technical systems) that is being used increasingly across the world to deliver high quality healthcare. Apollo understands the needs and challenges of providing super-specialist quality healthcare in remote and rural parts of the country and is now leveraging mHealth (healthcare supported by mobile devices) to make care accessible and affordable.