Leadership in healthcare

Healthcare Senate 2016, the National Private Healthcare Business Summit, hosted multiple power discussions wherein select delegates gathered to discuss on certain crucial issues and deliberate on the way forward. This session, headed by Dr A Velumani, Founder, Chairman, MD and CEO, Thyrocare, also saw a lot of knowledge sharing on diverse yet interconnected topics such as entrepreneurship, disruptions in business, volume-driven business models, steps to increase efficiency and efficacy of services etc.

Many of the issues raised at the power discussion were themes that Dr Velumani had touched upon in his very well-received key note address on the first day of Healthcare Senate. However, the delegates were eager to know more about the strategies and measures which helped him be a very successful entrepreneur. In a free-wheeling and interactive session, the delegates posed several questions to Dr Velumani which ranged from the reasons for choosing this model of business, its sustainability and replicability in other areas of healthcare business, and his strategies for further expansion, to the status of Nuclear, his second business venture to offer affordable PET scans, and the relevance as well as effectiveness of the volume-driven profit model in radiology.

Key takeaways

• Cost-effectiveness and quality can go hand in hand. In fact, quality can drive affordability
• Cost, reach, systems and technology are crucial to success in business
• A healthcare disruption should be something that affects a lot of people positively
• Look for untapped opportunities to help serve a huge number of people.
• Volume-driven models is the way forward in for healthcare delivery in India

Dr Velumani answered these questions in detail and pointed out that volume-driven businesses would always thrive in India, given the country’s huge need for cost-effective healthcare solutions to serve its populace. However, he stressed upon combining quality with cost-efficiency. He debunked the myth that cost and quality are often inversely proportional to each other and highlighted with examples, how he has offered both, affordability and excellent services to his customers, with timely and strategic investments in people, systems and technology.

The coversation then moved to disruptions in healthcare and their role in propelling progress. Dr Velumani said that disruptions happen when someone serves an unmet need in the most cost-effective and efficient way, thereby ensuring that a large number of people benefit from it. He urged everyone in the room to do the same. Identify unmet healthcare needs and look for strategies which would help serve the need in the best possible way, at affordable costs, he asserted.

The participants also discussed on ways and means to make a business more sustainable in the long run. They discussed on pricing strategies, effective handling of logistics, challenges in implementing effective systems, ways to ensure better reach of their services etc. Dr Velumani, acting as a mentor, gave valuable insights and guided young entrepreneurs to look for innovative measures to deal with challenges in their businesses. His parting advice to them was to find
opportunities which others haven’t spotted and be a disruptor in that space. He once again reiterated that entrepreneurship is not for the faint-hearted and it takes courage to walk down untrodden paths and succeed against all odds.