NextBillion.net - Development Through Enterprise - Guest Post: Healthcare and India's Low Income Market - Comments

DISHA

Pablo — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 04:43:23 -0400

Micro-insurance for health assistance is really one of the most challenging issues to make health services affordable for low-income communitites. Philips India started a pilot project to offer distance healthcare assistance to rural villages. The project was called DISHA (Distance Healthcare Advancement). Does anyone know if they succeed in their venture? I was in Tamil Nadu three years ago and they could not advance because insurances companies were not ready for offering their services to the low-income segment.

e-Sagar

Rob Katz — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 08:58:35 -0400

Sagar, you know you have arrived when Indian companies begin to name their base of the pyramid initiatives after you!

Thanks for pointing out the error - I've corrected it.

Take care and keep up the good work on SocialEdge.

Lots to do in healthcare at the BoP

Sagar Gubbi — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 02:15:11 -0400

The article provides a very good overview of healthcare needs and solutions at the BoP. I do tend to agree that several Acumen investees are doing a lot in healthcare. Exciting! One small correction though: ITC's initiative is called e-Choupal and not e-Sagar...;-)

Guest Post: Healthcare and India's Low Income Market

Rob Katz — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:10:42 -0400

Guest bloggers Shaila Parikh and Biju Mohandas work for Acumen Fund, based out of Hyderabad. Shaila is a Summer Associate and a Master of International Affairs candidate at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. Biju is Acumen Fund's India Business Manager. Before joining Acumen Fund, he served for five years in the Indian Army's Medical and Dental Corps. Later, Biju completed his Post Graduate Program in Management with a dual major in analytical finance and strategic marketing from the Indian School of Business.

By Shaila Parikh and Biju Mohandas

In the middle of June, Acumen investee LifeSpring opened its second low-cost maternity hospital in a peri-urban area near Hyderabad. They plan to have six hospitals opened by the end of 2008, and by the time this post goes live, they will have launched their third hospital in Nellore, a small town in southern Andhra Pradesh.

As LifeSpring and other Acumen Fund investees slowly and steadily gain scale, we have started asking broader questions about healthcare for the low-income market. Mainly, we want to understand the major gaps and bottlenecks to providing healthcare to the low-income market in India and how these issues can be overcome. The India office is presently working on a status report of the healthcare sector in which we are trying to understand the challenges of the industry for our target market. What follows is a brief summary of our understanding thus far. Your feedback through questions, comments, nudges, pointers and criticism are appreciated.

Simply put, healthcare for the poor seems to have three central challenges: affordability, availability and quality. Effective, viable solutions will need to address all three issues.

(This post continues past the break; click "Read More" to continue)