In September this year, Apollo Hospitals and Sanofi joined hands to set up Sugar Clinics for diabetics. With 65 million people affected from diabetes and 77.2 million in the pre-diabetic stage, India’s pie in diabetic patients is expected to swell up to 109 million by 2035. Shalini Gupta finds out more about their initiatives from Gagan Bhalla, CEO, Apollo Sugar
What is the objective behind setting up Apollo sugar clinics? How was this not being met earlier?
Given the size of the diabetic population in India, it is important to have a focused and comprehensive approach to the management of the disease. While Apollo has been in the diabetic care space for a fair amount of time, there is clearly a need to address the endemic, through dedicated efforts. Apollo’s vision to provide accessible diabetic care to all, clearly entailed having a separate entity, focused towards addressing the concerns of the large diabetic population, who have limited access to quality and affordable care, across the country.
How is Apollo going to capitalise upon its existing network to make this more effective?
The model of Sugar Clinics is indeed designed to capitalise on the existing Apollo network of hospitals and clinics. Apollo Sugar is modelled on a hub and spoke network – the Advanced Diabetes Management Centres in the hospitals act as hub for the Apollo Sugar Clinics spokes, present as shop-in-shop inside The Apollo Clinic or smaller hospitals and, the standalone clinics in some locations. This optimisation and scale-up is critical to help enhance reach to all parts of the country.
What have been the unmet needs in diabetic management in a country like India?
Patients consult diabetologists and endocrinologists only when there is dire need. Facets of lifestyle counselling, care for complications arising from high blood sugar such eye and podiatry (foot) care and other critical organs such as heart, kidney etc. need concerted care by the patient and the care-giver. Lifestyle support is a key missing link for diabetics and access to comprehensive care for the patient is another piece in the pie which makes the care complete.
Another critical aspect which I would like to touch upon, in the Indian context, is prevention through screening. We believe every Indian should screen themselves to understand their risk of developing diabetes. Self-awareness is the only way to win over this epidemic and lose the misnomer which India has earned of being the ‘Diabetic Capital’ of the world.
Hospitals traditionally have been one stop shops for all diseases and conditions. Are we going to see more such standalone clinics? What is the model going to be like?
As I mentioned earlier, Apollo Sugar is modelled on a hub and spoke model with the facilities in the hospitals acting as the hubs, and the clinics as spokes. Broadly there are three formats – Advanced Diabetes Management Centres inside Hospitals, shop-in-shop Sugar clinics inside Apollo Clinics and standalone Sugar Clinics.
Apollo Sugar Clinics inside The Apollo Clinics and standalones will address basic diabetes screening and diabetes management and are present to provide easy access to all. The requirements of advanced management of diabetes and co-morbidities or complications management, will be met by the Advanced Diabetes Management Centres (ADMCs) placed inside the hospitals. With the hospital eco-system capable of managing cardiac, nephrological and neurological complications, arising out of diabetes, the ADMCs acting as the hub was a natural choice. Basic screening can also be done in kiosk-like facilities, which can be housed at large corporates, which will effectively help them reduce healthcare costs and boost productivity, in the long run, when addressed timely.
Management of chronic diseases requires a lot of tracking as well patient monitoring. How can this be done, especially for conditions such as diabetes?
Apollo Sugar has designed a range of packages which will address concerns of the patients at large. Those who sign up to be a part of the robust programme, will have access to detailed tracking of their condition, as required clinically. Diabetic lifestyle support, aside from clinical care by our expert doctors, through our call centre support, interactive app and web-based trackers are amongst the services that a patient gets, to help in ensuring better monitoring of his condition. Apollo Sugar is also setting up the framework for at-home counselling and care for patients to ensure convenient care.
What is the number of clinics now? Which states would they serve? Which states do you plan to cover in phase II?
We are setting up 50 clinics across 18 cities of India. Some of the states that would get covered include Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal. Phase II would expand to cover the states of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Jharkhand. We are also looking at setting up Apollo Sugar in international locations, starting with the Middle East.
How much would a basic service cost? What kind of packages would you have? Enumerate on the most basic to advanced service? What services would a typical clinic provide? Is there any assistance for the rural population?
Apollo Sugar will have a wide range of services from basic screenings to comprehensive one year long packages. Simple diabetes screening could be as low as Rs 300. Our comprehensive packages which are clinically defined, range from an advanced programme for one year which includes periodic consultations, diagnostic tests and home care services, and our robust lifestyle support. A clinic typically would offer all the above mentioned from basic screenings to comprehensive packages. The intent is to provide 360 degree care to the patient to help manage all the critical parameters, for all diabetics, which can be sustained for a longer term. Apollo Group in the past has conducted mass screening across the country for the rural population, the intent to provide similar care at the grassroot level will remain, going forth too.
Diabetes is rampant in the rural urban as well as in urban and rural population. How do you plan to track and put down data that could give insights into the epidemiology of the disease?
The Apollo Group, with its reach across the country, through its hospitals and clinics helps in touching lives of the urban and rural population. Another step that Apollo Sugar would like to make in that direction is through the PPP model and tying up with government agencies to ensure screening and care delivery services to reach the real masses. In line with the non-communicable diseases (NCD ) prevention and control philosophy of the government, Apollo has its eyes set in democratising diabetes and making it ‘disease-free’ for all diabetics. Apollo Sugar has unique, ultra-modern screening equipment that can reach the remotest parts of the country and in partnership with the public sector and government agencies, we can gain very meaningful insights for further studies.
What are the future plans? Expansion, services, packages etc.
We are looking to expand with more centres within, as I talked about before and overseas too. The Middle East is already on our radar screen and by early next year we should have a facility there. Collaborations with international universities and other world-class centres to promote diabetes education and awareness, through various formats, will be some of the future plans that Apollo Sugar will partake.
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