Harvard Business Review reports that Indian hospital Narayana Health (NH) is building on the success of India’s medical tourism boom—a $1billion business that is growing by 30% a year—by opening a 2,000-bed multispecialty hospital in the Cayman Islands. A short hop from the American mainland, it will begin providing care in early 2014. Uninsured and underinsured patients will be able to receive high-quality treatment at an internationally accredited hospital for less than half of what they would pay in America. The proximity of NH’s beachhead may well pressure U.S. hospitals to develop innovative practices and systems
Among the hospitals’ most straightforward cost-cutting measures are efforts to prolong the working life of expensive technology through careful maintenance and repair. To that end, NH has contracted with a U.S. maintenance company, TriMedx, to help double the life of diagnostic equipment. Some hospitals routinely reuse medical devices sold as single-use products—such as $160 steel clamps employed during beating heart surgeries, which CARE Hospitals and NH sterilize and reuse 50 to 80 times. “If no hospital in the world throws away their needle holders, forceps, and scissors, which are drenched in blood after every operation, why throw out the clamps?” asks Devi Shetty, NH’s founder-chairman. In fact JCI allows accredited hospitals to reuse devices as long as they adhere to its strict sterilization procedures.
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