Nation Wide Primary Health Care Services brings back the General Physician to your home.

Mansi Reddy, June 13th 2011

The primary health care space in India suffers from a sense of scarcity. Limited doctors, unused clinics and poor facilities.  Most doctors in India have chosen to specialize and you will either find large multidisciplinary specialty hospitals or private clinics run by specialists. The ubiquitous General Physician is missing!  In India, a successful doctor is a specialized one; General Practitioners are not valued in the same way as a Cardiologist or Neurosurgeon. And so India’s primary health care system over many years has ended up suffering from an over dose of specialty while more than 80% of illnesses require the advice of a good General Physician who knows you. This leaves a large unmet demand for primary health care doctors and facilities.

And this is where the Founders of Nationwide Primary Healthcare have decided to create a disruptive model.

Dr. Santanu Chattopadhyay and his team joined the Alchemix Session in April 2011 to participate in a discussion. And we followed up with a visit to their Clinic to understand the model better.

16^th main in Indiranagar looks like any other street in the area; clean, tree lined with old bunglows, and kids running around. This is the street Nation Wide Primary Healthcare Services chose to set up shop. A renovated bungalow with a lush green lawn on 16^th main road now houses the head office and clinic of an innovative health care enterprise, the answer to urban India’s primary health issues.

Walking in, you can’t help but be taken aback by the ‘non-hospital looking’ facility. But within the clinic they address pretty much every health need a family could have, right from pediatrics and gynecology to blood tests, diagnostics, referrals and second opinions through a network on internal and external Doctors. Importantly, they offer home visits (remember how GP’s used to come home to visit the family many years ago and stay on for long chats?) and health care plans that are specific to your body’s needs. A critical aspect of their health care model is the extensive use of EMR’s or Electronic Medical Records that contain a patient’s history and information, made readily available to the patient and doctors. Starting at around Rs. 300 per month, these are affordable and easy to access for family’s looking for a family doctor.

There is scope for a Nation Wide clinic in cities across India. Dr. Santanu Chattopadhyay, Founder and Managing Director of Nation Wide walked us through the evolution of this model. He saw that the growing need for tertiary and secondary health care systems was a direct result of a neglected primary care system. “You shouldn’t have to go to a hospital when you feel a little bit under the weather and shouldn’t wait till a health issue becomes serious before you go see a doctor. Prevention is given priority at Nation Wide”, explained Dr. Chattopadhyay.

Dr. (Maj) Satish Jeevannavar, Associate Director, Business Development, explained that Nation Wide’s view on prevention is cultivated by developing a strong, long term, open relationship with your doctor. They set up online accounts with medical history for every patient, conduct follow up phone calls (even when a patient isn’t sick!), have a 24/7 on call facility and even provide for home visits. The extensive use of EMR’s (Electronic Medical Records) allows for quick and easy access to a patient’s history. Nation Wide applies a holistic diagnosis method and tries to develop long term relationships between patients and their doctor. Nation Wide realizes the impact and value a knowledgeable doctor (with a thorough medical history of the patient) creates and tries to cultivate behavior change and awareness amongst patients.

Dr. Santanu highlights that a big innovation challenge was to find qualified GP’s in India. With a weak GP development approach in India, this needed a breakthrough. Interestingly many qualified NRI GP’s wish to come back to India but find little space in the ‘over-specialized’ medical space. Dr. Chattopadhyay’s team leverages this gap and provides a very fulfilling opportunity to returning GP’s to help build the Hub and spoke model of the Nation Wide network. As a result the Doctors bring in  the experience of working in international health care systems, this exposure allows Nation Wide practitioners to adopt the best practices from the world over. This route back to basics seems to have a few key elements:

• A focus on primary health care which forms almost 80% of all health requirements
• Perform the functions of a family doctor in an organized, easily accessible, affordable residential sphere.
• Utilize the General Practitioner method of treatment and diagnosis by employing NRI doctors returning to India with tremendous GP experience , or retiring Army Doctors who also have experience working within a highly evolved GP system
• Stress on the significance of an up-to-date, thorough medical history in diagnosing health concerns. Habitual communication (for example: follow up calls, irrespective of a person’s health status) with their doctors is a key element in their practices.

Nation Wide follows a hub and spoke model. In Bangalore, the first city of focus has hubs in Indiranagar and Whitefield, and clinics in Koramangala and smaller clinics in a couple of gated communities in Bangalore. They also have clinics in a few corporate organizations and are looking to expand their model in Bangalore, Mumbai and other cities by 2012.

Picture an India in a couple years time that hosts extensive, easy to access primary health care facilities, electronic medical information and tracking in every city to every urban family at an affordable price. The next time you feel a bit out of sorts, don’t rush to the big multispeciality hospital or wait till the problem gets worse, look up your nearest Nation Wide clinic and register with them. As Dr. Preeti Satish reiterates, walk-ins are also welcome!

What looks like a competitive market is sometimes a huge opportunity for disruption. It just requires an entrepreneur to look at it from a different perspective…. especially in markets where years of development have led to expensive and complex solutions, leaving space open for simple ideas that take you back to basics…..

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