“We are focussed on infection prevention by means of safe reprocessing of medical device”

Anant Agarwal, President, Getinge India talks about his company, its operations, products and future plans.

Worldwide, Getinge AB is a known listed entity in the healthcare segment. Briefly highlight the positioning of your company in India?

Anant Agarwal President, Getinge India

Getinge is a leading global medical technology company with operations in the areas of surgery, intensive care, infection control, care ergonomics and wound care. The Group is organised in three business areas: Medical Systems, Extended Care, and Infection Control. All three business areas enjoy leadership positions in their respective areas of operations.

I can comment more from the perspective of “Infection Control” business area in India. Getinge has been present in India for more than three decades, and are the market leaders in India. Getinge is recognised as a trusted-partner and supplier of equipment and services for cleaning, disinfection and sterilisation of instruments. Our innovative solutions provide the highest quality and safety at the lowest total cost.

Getinge takes pride in offering products with exactly the same specifications that we offer to the European markets.

Being the flag-bearers of the “infection control” industry in India, we run an academy. The role of the academy is to spread the awareness about “infection-control practices” among health care workers. This has immensely helped in raising the bar for the whole industry.

In addition to above, our bi-monthly newsletter is circulated to 2000+ centres across the country. This newsletter is co-authored by industry “key-opinion leaders” – focuses on issues related to sterilisation and disinfection. This further spreads the awareness and cements our numero-uno position in the industry.

Tell us about your specialised infection control products/ services. What is Gettinge’s USP?

We, as an organisation, are focussed on infection prevention by means of safe reprocessing of medical devices, and our undivided efforts are directed towards achieving this goal. We take huge pride in the fact that we are the only company which offers a “complete solution” to our customers – ranging from architecture planning, equipments (low temperature sterilisation solutions, steam sterilisation, washer disinfectors, bed pan flushers in a huge range of capacities for various applications), after sales service, consumables and education and training. We offer a range of products suitable for dental clinics to day-care centres to theatre sterilisation units to full-fledged CSSDs of a multi super-speciality hospital.

We have a very strong culture of – “We say what we do and we do what we say”. We believe in consistently surpassing the expectations that the customers have from us – be it in terms of product capabilities or service deliverables. This has helped us gain repeat business from customers.

According to you, what has been the level and state of awareness of infection control management in Indian hospital? What needs to done to evolve this stream?

As far as big hospitals in big cities is concerned, there is a lot of awareness about infection control practices. These hospitals invest in latest products and technologies, and usually have world class SOPs which are regularly audited/updated. Today more and more hospitals are going for various accreditations – which force them to adhere to prescribed standards of infection control.

Agencies like Hospital Infection Control Society of India (HISI), Hospital Sterile Services Association (HSSA) in Mumbai are actively involved in highlighting the issues faced by health care professionals and providing guidelines for the functioning of critical areas of hospitals.

Beyond this I am afraid, the awareness is very limited. Infection control activities in most centres are viewed as a ‘cost-centre’ and are not perceived to give any “return on investment”.

Guidelines – at best – are only a set of recommendations. What we need today is a strong regulation – This will force the system to implement the basic standards of hygiene and infection control. We have seen a similar development happening in the area of bio-medical waste management a few years ago.

What are the market opportunities for business growth in India?

I can mention a few recent trends in the Indian context….

a) We see an increasing number of “day care centres” chains coming up these days. These are relatively smaller facilities compared to multi-specialty hospitals. They have very different requirements – much smaller floor spaces and they typically ask for very short time for delivery and installation.
b) As the infrastructure develops and the awareness spreads, people in smaller cities are also asking for, and investing in world-class products and technologies.
c) Another model that is gaining popularity in the western world is the concept of a “Super CSSD” – which caters to a group of hospitals. One can achieve “economies of scale” and better quality control by better utilising the investments.

Tell us about your company’s latest product offerings which will help you retain your leadership position in the industry.

To be successful on a sustained basis, we keep introducing new products and technologies to address current and emerging needs of the customers. Some of the recent new offerings include……

a) To increase the efficiency of the sterilisation department, we have recently introduced “Turbo” technologies. This not only reduced the cycle times significantly, but it also consumes much lesser amounts of energy and water per instrument.
With increasing awareness about concern for the environment, these products are being very much appreciated by the customers.
b) We have recently introduced traceability solutions and “On-line” diagnostics. We have tried to harness the power of “IT” to make our product offerings more beneficial to the customers.
c) We have launched the endoscope reprocessor in the Indian market.
d) We try to create an environment for the workers which are not stressful – Instead, they should enjoy the work. To achieve this objective, we have introduced more ergonomic equipments – height adjustable tables, trolleys etc.