Trends in Indian Healthcare Industry - 2011

Healthcare sector has witnessed upward trend even during recessions, reports suggest that healthcare is going to be one of the major sector that would fuel the economic growth and will contribute to the increased revenues, along with IT Services and Education sectors.

Forecasted 40 millions new jobs and around 200 billion increased revenues by 2020 in Indian Healthcare Industry.

The Indian healthcare industry is seen to be growing at a much rapid pace  and is expected to become a Rs.12,60,000 Cr. by 2020.

The past two years most of the players in the Healthcare Industry announced huge expansion plans, many large companies and corporates with no or very little existence in healthcare delivery declared that they would be putting in huge investments in Healthcare Services.

According to the Investment Commission of India the healthcare sector has experienced phenomenal growth of more than 12%per annum in the last 4years and this growth is expected to be driven by differnet factors: rising life expectancy, rising income levels of Indian households, increasing penetration of health insurance and rising incidence of lifestyle-related diseases in the country has led to increased spending on healthcare delivery.

The Employment Trend

As per the Ma Foi Employment Trends Survey 2010, the Healthcare sectors has witnessed the most post recession recruitment to a total employee base of 33, 66,000 with 2,95,000 New Jobs added to this sector.

The Private healthcare boom continues notwithstanding the slowdown. Over the last 18 months, when most industries were busy restructuring operations, optimizing their costs, Indian pharmaceutical and healthcare industry was adding manpower.

Next year looks bright with addition of many new hospital beds, deeper penetration of super-specialty healthcare, greater coverage of insurance facilities and increasing medical tourism, would ensure further growth and enhanced job opportunities in this sector.

Newer Opportunities

Two vital areas and efficient medical care system are Emergency and Specialist medical care. Emergency care is still in a budding stage all across India, Now with the Medical Council of India (MCI) accepting Emergency Medicine as one of the specialty, there are huge opportunities for personnel in this area especially Nurses, Paramedics, Technicians and Emergency medicine specialized doctors.Emergency Care

The current Emergency Medical Services infrastructure is inefficient due to the lack of critical components such as: a centralized administrative body, trained emergency medical personnel, a centralized emergency phone number (similar to 9/11 in US, 1/12 in UK and other developed countries) and quality pre hospital care.

However, due to an increase in the number of government initiatives and the Public/Private Partnership initiatives that are visible in many states in the recent past, with 108 being accepted as the National Emergency Number and this would also bring better opportunities for Nurses, Paramedics, Emergency medical
technicians and Emergency medicine specialized doctors across India.

Specialist Medical care

Specialist care in the country is on the rise with several multispecialty hospitals that has come across in several tire II and tire III cities, these are generating better revenues compared to many multispecialty hospitals in the same region. But severe brain drain in this area is a major challenge for all players in this sector.

Booming Healthcare and its allied industry

The other allied business are also en-cashing the boom in the healthcare sector

• Hospitals/Nursing Homes: Rs. 54,000 Crores, growing at 20%
• Medical Equipment: Rs. 9,000 Crores, growing at 15%
• Clinical Lab Diagnostics: Rs. 9,000 Crores, growing at 30%.
• Imaging Diagnostics: Rs. 4,500 Crores, growing at 30%   
• Other Services (includes Training & Education; Aesthetics & Weight loss; Retail Pharmacy, etc): Rs. 9,000 Crores, growing at 40%
• Health Insurance: Health Insurance has the potential to show top line growth, McKinsey-CII estimates the number of potential insurable lives at 315 million with a potential of Rs. 34,650 Crores in health insurance premium by 2015.
• Medical Tourism: With India fast becoming a hub for medical tourists seeking quality healthcare at an affordable cost. India’s medical tourism sector is expected to experience an annual growth rate of 30%, making it a Rs. 9,500 Crores by 2015.
• Further, importing customers into India (Medical Tourism, educational services, leisure tourism) could add $ 6-50 billion in revenue and create 10-48 million jobs (direct and indirect) by 2020.

Conclusion

The Indian healthcare Industry too is confronted with many challenges, unlike any other emerging sector, several odds that would restrict or hamper its growth, the government, other related agencies in consultation with the private players should pitch in to address current and emerging core issues of Infrastructure, Human resource, Education, Finance, draft policies and etc., for establishment of international norms, standards that would enhance further growth, bring in millions of job opportunities and will also support other sectors of the Indian economy else otherwise will have opportunities lost, with long standing implications on the economy.