Thursday, March 13, 2008

India gets first health mall in Mohali















If all that mall hopping is telling on your health, then you can go to a unique mall, a health mall. A venture in which doctors will have a stake and businessmen can invest in health care. Gurtej Singh, CEO of IVY Hospital says, ''this model has been very-very successful in giving lot of satisfaction to the doctors, who kind of de facto own up the place for 10 to 30 years. It will bring down gestation period to seven days from three to five years. This is because from day one, they will be able to generate profits. The infrastructure is ready and they are already in business.''

More than half a dozen major companies have tied up with the new IVY hospital in Mohali. Some of them are from the US such as 21st century Oncology, one of the largest service providers in radiation therapy. Jonathan Weinbach, vice president of 21st Century in USA, ''Health mall is a unique mall in India, probably to the world. We have some modified version of that in US where hospitals are like apartment, run by experts.''

Avinash Srivastava of RG Stones in New Delhi says, ''we have taken urology department in this hospital. We have taken our urology department one and half months back. This is the concept of health mall is a win-win situation for the hospital and the partner.'' The health mall concept will also reduce costs, as different departments will share the infrastructure. Now doctors can think of owning a clinic without investing the earth. This is certainly not a bad concept for a country where there are hardly enough hospitals for the rapidly swelling population.

This is a very nice venture and will benefit many people. I hope to visit them when they are completed when I visit India. This news is courtesy of NDTV 24x7 through my DirecTV connection.

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