Q1. Congratulations for an Excellent 2019, Please let us know your key achievements in 2019?
As a healthcare professionals we strive towards better patient care and excellence in delivery of services. In 2019, we took lot of efforts and experiments in improving patient experience in several ways and some of those really worked well and I am pleased that it got recognized and I was awarded Patient Experience Leader of the year. I always believe that nurturing and developing skilled work force is the future need of the industry and I have started shaping my dream as Chairman – Health Sector Skill Council (HSSC) for Western Region. We together dream to train more than 10,000 allied health science workers in coming years. I am very proud of my team in P D Hinduja Hospital who relentlessly work for the quality and patient safety. We together successfully got ICU Certification, Recognition for Green Hospital and many more.

Q2. Please Share Few Disappointments in 2019?
I have seen a little slow down in the growth rate of healthcare industry in comparison to previous years. Though Ayushman Bharat took center stage in Indian Healthcare but probably due to lack of incentive and focus on healthcare in recent Union Budget, investors and enterpreneurs may not have shown much actions in healthcare sectors.

Key Challenges to Overcome in 2020?
As a Healthcare Provider, I feel that the major challenge will be to provide affordable healthcare to the community where margins are shrinking and very importantly quality is taking a back seat in that environment. Another challenge will be supply / availability of qualified and trained manpower.

Q3. Way Forward for 2020?
Based on the FY 19-20 Union Budget which mentioned a very heavy investment in infrastructure, we look forward that this would be used for healthcare infrastructure too.
The conversion of district hospitals to medical colleges and funds for enhancing the nursing services is what will help make these services better in 2020 and this will have a long term positive impact on healthcare industry.
Also I feel all the stakeholders of healthcare ecosystem develop a mentality to adopt lean practices, from traditional healthcare delivery to value based healthcare. Integration of Technology in care delivery will continue to be a driver.’

Q5. Being Most Charismatic Hospital Administrator in Industry, Please suggest what needs to unlearn and learn in Disruptive times?
Not sure about Charisma but can say, In today’s era of digital disruption we have to learn how to use technology for better health care delivery, not just in metros and tier one cities but also create a nexus or the network in the tier two and tier three cities including the rural India too. Telemedicine is one such example which has gained a decent acceptance in this direction, but this is not enough we need to use AI and Machine learning for enhancing care delivery. A good example is chat bots answering basic questions and also helping customers to go a lot more things like appointment request etc.
We need to leverage on technology to reduce the manpower and increase efficiency. Robotic surgery is yet another example of digital disruption in healthcare.
Probably the only thing I suggest to unlearn is the traditional way of looking for solution in healthcare. This is the age of disruption and we need to look at disruptive innovation.

Q6. Message for Healthcare Industry?

According to sources it said that the Indian Hospital industry is going to grow at a CAGR of 16-17 % until FY 2022. This information is very important and based on this we as an industry need to gear ourselves in all spheres of healthcare delivery for the better patient care.