Vaatsalya in FICCI Heal 2010: Healthcare for All - New Delhi Sep 6th

Dr. Ashwin Naik, CEO of Vaatsalya will be one of the speakers at this event.

Vaatsalya Launches Web Based Procurement Management Solution for Hospitals in India
Bangalore. July 24th 2010

Vaatsalya Healthcare, a pioneer in Semi-urban and Rural healthcare in India, today announced the release of an online collaborative web based hospital supplies procurement management system, Procure Xpress

Procure Xpress system is an online open source technology based procurement suite designed to support the entire requirement to fulfillment cycle of hospital equipment and supplies for mid sized hospitals, in a transparent and centralized manner.

Procure Xpress builds on Vaatsalya’s existing procurement management process by web-enabling and expanding the requisition, indenting, approval, budgeting, contract, catalog, inventory and reporting functions of the system. It also delivers on demand reports that enable participating hospital partners to rapidly identify procurement-related cost savings opportunities.

"The new system will leverage Vaatsalya's extensive procurement management expertise and processes and compliment it with web-based system to improve the performance of the procurement life-cycle for our own hospitals and our healthcare business partners," said Dr Ashwin Naik , CEO , Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions Pvt Ltd , Bangalore

Vaatsalya is in discussions with other hospitals outside the Vaatsalya Network who have shown interest in leveraging the Procure Xpress platform to streamline their internal procurement processes.

"It allows our hospitals and our partners hospitals to establish control of the procurement processes. Electronic requisitions provide the opportunity to capture demand accurately and hence Procure Xpress helps ensure hospitals get their supply chain off to the right start" says Dr Madhuri Umeshchandra, Project Coordinator and Lead of the Procure Xpress Project, Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions Pvt Ltd , Bangalore

Procure Xpress has assisted Vaatsalya healthcare to cut the time to process the procurement of CAPEX items from 4-5 days to as little as 1-2 days. The Procure Xpress system is now used by more than 50 users within the company and more then 100 suppliers across the country.

“We had in place a centralized payments department for our suppliers,” explains Dr Veerendra Hiremath , COO, Vaatsalya “Now we wanted a solution that would be a significant improvement on our existing paper-based procurement systems”.

The company partnered with Audech Solutions to develop its procurement management systems, to obtain greater control and efficiency within the group’s business processes.

“We have achieved operational efficiencies without significantly changing the way we conduct business. Procure Xpress has driven significant actual and time-based savings, allowing us to focus more on our core business” Says Dr Anil Bidri, Senior Project Manager, Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions, Bangalore

Central control provides group purchasing power

Tight control over what is ‘approved’ is critical for Vaatsalya. Procure Xpress controls at a central level what can and cannot be purchased by a hospital’s individual stores. It provides the ability to link many suppliers to one product, comparing pricing and service levels, and creating individual catalogues of relevant products for each hospital. Products and prices are updated centrally, automatically ensuring instantaneous changes to each hospital catalogue.

“This control offers an immediate benefit by eliminating out of budget spend,” explains Dr Madhuri Umeshchandra; Project Coordinator, Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions, Bangalore. “Any item procured has been approved for use within Vaatsalya, and at a cost negotiated with the full purchasing power of the group”. Additionally, all items are mapped to the correct General Ledger expense headers, and all users are linked to their respective cost centre code, enabling the system to generate accurate costing reports. This information, duly reconciled to payment data, can be electronically imported into accounting systems.

About Vaatsalya

Vaatsalya is the nation’s first network of hospitals focused on Primary and Secondary care in Semi-urban and Rural India

Vaatsalya is a corporate healthcare network focused on providing affordable, efficient and sustainable healthcare service to semi-urban & rural areas and was founded by two doctors, Dr. Ashwin Naik and Dr. Veerendra Hiremath in Early 2005.

Vaatsalya intends to eliminate the gap in healthcare access by creating India’s first network of hospitals exclusively in semi-urban and rural areas and bringing urban healthcare facilities and services to non-urban areas

About Audech

Audech is a start up in software technology. We use innovation in our products and services to deliver real operational value to our customers. We work with selected organizations who work in rural/semi-urban areas, for example microfinance. And help these organizations scale and grow rapidly by using technology. Our deep insight into customers requirements helps us provide cost effective solutions

Contact

Dr. Madhuri Umeshchandra
admin@vaatsalya.com
http://www.vaatsalya.com
08041104652

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From The Hindu
“Work with integrity and succeed.” That was what the former President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam had to say to doctors at an interaction here on Sunday

Participating in the inauguration of Vatsalya Hospital in Hubli and an interaction with medical professionals, the former President said that doctors should inculcate six virtues — generosity, ethics, tolerance, perseverance, concentration and knowledge — he said.

Emphasising the need for generosity among medical practitioners, Dr. Kalam asked doctors to treat patients before asking them to complete formalities. “A doctor saves lives first,” he said. Medicine and compassion should go hand in hand, he added. He asked nurses to greet patients with a smile, as it plays a major role in curing ailments.

Referring to the lack of interest among doctors to take up teaching, he said that teachers should be given a good salary and pleasant work atmosphere. “One should not be forced into the profession. Those taking up teaching should have a passion for it,” he added.

On the occasion, Dr. Kalam administered an oath to doctors, nurses and para-medical staff of the hospital. He recalled the services of the late Venkataswamy, a Madurai-based ophthalmologist who was on a mission to eliminate blindness by holding over 2.5 million surgeries annually and H Sudarshan of Vivekananda Tribal Hospital, M.M. Hills, Mysore, who was providing healthcare to the tribal people.

During the interaction, Dr. Kalam stressed the need to identify hidden talents in children and provide an opportunity for them to express their skills. Primary education should help children bring out their creativity. For that to happen, curriculum of primary classes should be completely changed, he said.

A leader was one who was transparent, knew how to manage failure, shouldered the responsibility of failure and attributed success to their team, he said.

Vaatsalya at Intellecap's Capital Raising Workshop for SMEs in Mumbai on May 6, 2010 at Taj Lands End.

Dr. Ashwin Naik - Co-Founder, CEO of Vaatsalya will be the speaker of this event along with Mr. Vineet Rai – Founder, Aavishkaar and Mr. Madhukar Sinha – Investment Manager, Aavishkaar.

For more details

New Models, New Terrain
"Improving the lives of billions of people at the bottom of the economic pyramid is a noble endeavour. It can also be a lucrative one," so says management guru C.K. Prahalad. New business models in Indian healthcare back up that theory. Ask Dr Ashwin Naik, 37, and Dr Veerendra Hiremath, 35, who grew up in Hubli, Karanataka, went around the world and returned to set up Vaatsalya, a unique model of affordable hospital network in under-served tier II and III towns. "Doctors from rural districts rarely go back to their roots," says Naik. They decided to address this demand-supply gap.

When Vaatsalya started, they tapped into their NRI friends and family to chip in. "They gave easily because everyone wants to connect to their roots." Venture funds began contributing gradually, both with money and expertise. Vaatsalya runs in eight locations in the state, focusing on the mother and child, offers about 520 beds and sees 20,000 patients a month. Apart from full-time doctors, Vaatsalya also gets consultants from metros who want to go back to their roots or from local partners. What next? "Building up the chain in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh," they say.

Read complete story at India Today

For V.T. Patil, 62, a dialysis session meant travel first and treatment next. The resident of Bijapur in Karnataka would travel 98 km up to three times a week to Sholapur in Maharashtra for the procedure that becomes mandatory when kidneys fail to function normally. Others from Bijapur make the 110 km trip to Miraj, again in Maharashtra, for a consultation with a nephrologist.

Not any more, after a new hospital came to town. A Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions-run hospital, set up in Bijapur in 2008, attends to some 10 dialysis procedures a day—a sizeable number for a medical facility its size. The scale underscores a fundamental market need that Vaatsalya is trying to address: seven of 10 Indians live in villages and semi-urban areas but have to make do with two of 10 hospitals and healthcare facilities in the country.

Vaatsalya is today arguably the first Indian hospital network in the country that is totally focussed on Tier II and Tier III towns. At the moment in Karnataka, it has hospitals in Hubli, Gadag, Bijapur, Mandya, Raichur, Hassan, Mysore, Gulbarga and Shimoga. To penetrate these markets, Vaatsalya is built as a low-cost model that promises affordable and accessible healthcare services.

Vaatsalya Healthcare Solutions

FOUNDER: Dr Ashwin Naik

INNOVATION: Health-care delivery in Tier II and Tier III towns.

MODEL: A no-frills model that offers affordable and accessible healthcare services. It scans locations where it can be an early mover and have a huge catchment and be able to offer a better technology alternative locally.

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Interview with Dr. Ashwin Naik, co-founder Vaatsalya

Your organization has done great work in building health services in rural and semi urban Karnataka. Please share with us the challenges you faced in setting up your enterprise.

When we established the first Vaatsalya Hospital in Hubli in 2005, our idea was to provide access to affordable healthcare services in semi-urban and rural areas. The idea was borne out of our personal experiences that most healthcare faclities are in Urban areas, and in small towns and villages where most of us grew up or live in, there is huge demand for quality services which is not met. Naturally, being the first company in India to address this market, we faced a lot of challenges and surprises.

When we started the company, the initial challenge was to identify likeminded doctors to work with, build our first model unit and to identify sources of funding before everything else. We were lucky that our first set of investors where professionals of Indian Origin who are settled abroad in the US, Europe and other parts of the world. These initial backers had the foresight to relate to the vision of Vaatsalya and also the desire to seed such an effort in India. Based on this initial funding, we were able to set up our first hospital and then work with some great doctors who are associated with us even today, with whom we evolved our business model.

Once the first unit was up and running and we started seeing the acceptance of our model in the community, we put together a plan to expand our reach and established two more units in quick succession with support from Aavishkaar, which is a Social Venture Capital Fund.
More..

In many countries, the provision of hospital care is turning into an industry with the increasing presence of large corporate hospital chains. Along with public agencies and small private operators, corporations are now investing in the Indian hospital sector.

Since the 1980s, health sector reforms and the liberalization policy in India have created new profit-making opportunities in the health care market for local and international corporations. A new pro-market regulatory environment has helped private corporations to invest in the hospital sector. While the demand for hospital care has increased in India, public and private hospital care providers failed to deliver not only in terms of volume (i.e. number of beds) but also in term of quality of care. With such an untapped market and a favourable regulatory environment, corporations see a tremendous growth potential in Indian hospital care.

This paper documents the formation of corporate hospital chains in India, their increasing prominence in the delivery of hospital care, and central and state government's role in this transformation.
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Vaatsalya has won the Rashtriya Samman Puraskar – 2009 for outstanding contribution in Healthcare sector. This award is given by Indian Development & Research Association (IEDRA) every year to recognise & motivate the organisations for their phenomenal & eminent performance in their respective fields.

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Vaatsalya has been invited to participate at the working conference with the theme "Solutions for Inclusive Development".

Based on discussions with practitioners in the developmental field, the Conference is designed around seven broad themes for the Working Groups (the design also allows for more focused discussion groups withing these themes):

Market Linkages: Mainstreaming the Marginalised Producers
Employment & Livelihood: Organising the Unorganised
Universal Primary Education: Investing in the Future
Financial Inclusion: Creating an Equitable India
Healthcare & Hygiene for All: Making a Healthier Society
Access to Technology & Societal Resources: Empowering the Masses
Grass Root Innovations: Supporting Social Entrepreneurship

More at:

According to an ASSOCHAM and YES Bank study, the private sector accounts for 80 per cent of the country's healthcare delivery market and is growing with a CAGR of 20 per cent and presently stands at 22 billion dollars.
It also projects that the Indian diagnostic and pathology services contribution to healthcare industry shall touch 2.5 billion dollars by 2012 as against 1.2 billion dollars during 2008-09.
According to the report, out of pocket spending by Indians constitutes 94 per cent of total spend in the private health industry.
''Investments by private players for Tier II and III cities are increasingly getting momentum and with the economic growth in these cities, healthcare sector is expected to rise exponentially,'' said ASSOCHAM President Swati Piramal.
Pointing out examples, the study said that Vaatsalya Healthcare has successfully completed two rounds of funding. While in 2008, it raised almost Rs 6 crore from Seedfund and Aavishkar, it recently raised a further amount from Oasis fund and returning investor Seedfund.
Though the investment amount is small, it is indicative of the interest and confidence in a novel model like that proposed by Vaatsalya, it said.

More details at Central Chronicle

Villgro Awards is a platform to honour outstanding individuals and other stakeholders of the innovation eco-system for their contribution in developing and disseminating innovations that benefit the society.

Vaatsalya is nominated in the enterprise category. You can vote by sending an SMS to 54999 with the text "Villgro E12"

When Ashwin Naik, 36, came up with the idea for Vaatsalya Healthcare in 2004, his dream was to get young doctors to come to small-town India. It was also the key to the success of his rather unique business model: world-class healthcare for rural and semi-urban consumers at rock-bottom prices. Five years and seven hospitals later, he still struggles to get doctors to buy into his dream, though he has got investors to do so.

“We thought good quality facilities would attract doctors. But it remains a big challenge,” says the young doctor-turned-entrepreneur. Naik, however, is far from giving up. Armed with $5 million in fresh venture capital from Switzerland-based Oasis Fund, he is getting ready to notch up one million customers per year (against 175,000 per year now). He plans to use the money to set up 13 more hospitals in Karnataka, the company’s home base, and elsewhere in southern India, taking the total network to 20. If Vaatsalya gets to that figure, it will prove the sustainability of the business model of this Bangalore-based start-up.

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Vaatsalya Healthcare, a pioneer in semi-urban and rural healthcare in India, announces funding from Oasis Fund and Seedfund to expand hospital network across India. The investment was led by Oasis Fund, a Luxemburg based investment fund with a successful track record of investing in emerging enterprises across the world. Vaatsalya is expanding the Vaatsalya Hospitals network from seven hospitals in Karnataka to twenty hospitals across India. Existing investor, Seedfund also participated in this round of funding.

Jean-Philippe de Schrevel and Eric Berkowitz, from the investment advisory firm Bamboo Finance, stage funding from India’s leading early stage fund Seedfund and India’s leading micro venture capital fund, Aavishkaar.
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Indian metros and urban areas have access to some of the world’s best healthcare facilities, whereas the semi-urban and rural areas often do not have access to basic healthcare services. Vaatsalya aims to plug this gap and provide basic and secondary care in the areas where such services or quality services do not exist. Vaatsalya’s goal is to be the leading low-cost but high quality service provider in its geographies of operations.

Today, Vaatsalya provides affordable primary and secondary healthcare services across seven districts in Karnataka and is currently managing 300 beds, making it the largest chain of its kind. With the new round financing Vaatsalya aims operate 20 hospitals across southern region.

Recepient of the Sankalp Award 2009 for Healthcare Inclusion, Winner of the BiD challenge India 2007 and LRAMP award 2008 in the enterprise category, Vaatsalya focuses on the core specialities of Gynaecology, Paediatrics, General Surgery and General Medicine at each of its hospitals. In addition, depending on the unmet needs of the local community specialised services like Dialysis, Intensive Care Units, Paediatric Surgery, Diabetology and Neurosurgery are added to the service portfolio.

Dr Ashwin Naik, Founder and Vaatsalya CEO said “Our goal is to revolutionise the existing healthcare system in India by focusing primarily on providing high quality healthcare services to semi-urban and rural India. We are fortunate to have found partners like Oasis and Seedfund who share our passion and vision.”

“Our hospital network is proud to have attracted the best medical teams from across India, who have shown a keen desire and passion to work in our hospitals, particularly doctors who were born and grew up in semi-urban India. Our strategy is to tap into the entrepreneurial spirit of such doctors and work with them on expanding our network. Over the next two years, in addition to our Greenfield projects, we will be actively exploring options to partner with existing nursing homes and hospitals that share our philosophy.” added COO and co-founder Dr Veerendra Hiremath.

Jean-Philippe de Schrevel said: “Oasis Fund and its advisory company Bamboo Finance are very proud to be partnering with Vaatsalya to increase healthcare access in India. We created Oasis to support commercially viable social ventures and build on the success we had with BlueOrchard in the area of microfinance. We are working with Vaatsalya on a strategy to increase its outreach to low-income patients by providing a link with microfinance institutions and micro health insurance programs. “

“We have looked all over the world and Vaatsalya has one of the most innovative business models for providing healthcare access in middle and low income communities. Vaatsalya has proven that they can provide affordable and high quality healthcare in a sustainable and scalable way. This makes Vaatsalya a perfect fit with the mission of Oasis and we are excited to support the expansion of their hospital network and their service to low income communities.” added Eric Berkowitz.

Bharati Jacob from Seedfund added “We are proud to be associated with Vaatsalya as its model has shown that low cost doesn’t necessarily mean low quality and that scalable and profitable business model can be built while providing lower priced health care services. We believe Vaatsalya will revolutionise low cost delivery model”

About Oasis Fund and Bamboo Finance:
Oasis Fund is a Luxembourg SICAV-SIF which invests in innovative, commercially viable enterprises which are designed to generate significant social impact and solid financial return. Bamboo Finance is the Geneva based advisory firm for Oasis.

About Seedfund:
Seedfund, an early stage venture capital fund looks to invest in media, mobile, internet, retail and consumer-facing businesses. Seedfund is founded by Pravin Gandhi, Bharati Jacob and Mahesh Murthy. Seedfund's investors include Google, Reliance ADA Group, Motorola, Sierra Ventures and Mayfield. Seedfund has made investments in around 10 companies including Vaatsalya, Agencyfaqs.com, RedBus.in and CarWale.

About Aavishkaar:
The Aavishkaar India Micro Venture Capital Fund (“Aavishkaar”, http://www.aavishkaar.org) is a World Business Award winning venture fund founded on the principle that sustainable development can be achieved by encouraging and investing into micro and small enterprises, with a value proposition targeting the Base of the Pyramid. Aavishkaar’s focus is into sectors such as agri-business, renewable energy, healthcare, handicrafts, technology interventions improving accessibility and other such areas that impact the larger society.

Contact Information:

Vaatsalya Healthcare
Mr. Rocky Philip
Email: admin@vaatsalya.com
Tel: +91 80 41104652
Web: http://www.vaatsalya.com

Seedfund
Ms Bharati Jacob
Tel: +91 22 24902201
Web: http://www.seedfund.in

Bamboo Finance
Mr. Eric Berkowitz
Tel: +41 22 596 4750
Web: http://www.bamboofinance.com

Aavishkaar
Mr. P Pradeep
Tel: +91-22-32535292
Web: http://www.aavishkaar.org

Launched in 2005, the L-RAMP Awards recognise and celebrate the spirit of innovation by awarding achievers in the field of grassroots innovation – innovators, entrepreneurs, investors and the media. By doing so, the L-RAMP Awards also draw attention to the constantly humming but largely unnoticed world of grassroots innovation – a world characterised by strong ideas, never-say-die innovators, committed entrepreneurs and socially responsible media.

More at LRAMP site