Q1. What are the various factors that attract foreign patients to India and other South-Eastern countries? Is it necessary for the service providers to understand the culture of the foreign patients to provide them better service?
A1.There are four key factors that are making the foreign patients prefer Indian hospitals – availability of world-class facilities and treatment.
1) Indian hospitals are now on par with the international hospitals in terms of infrastructure, service and doctors. This encourages the foreign patients to prefer Indian hospitals. The cost factor is another major reason for the foreign patients to show preference towards Indian hospitals. The cost of an operation in India is nearly one-fourth or one-fifth of the cost in developed countries. For example, a liver transplant operation in India costs nearly Rs 20 lakhs, compared to Rs 60-70 lakhs in developed countries. Such a cost difference is attracting the foreign patients to prefer treatment in Indian hospitals. Thus, world-class treatment coupled with less cost is prompting the foreign patients to get treated in Indian hospitals.
2) India is now developing as a medical hub and has the most competent doctors and world class Medical Facilities. This fact has now been realized the world over. Indian doctors are recognized for their competence world over and India doctors are found working in each and every country of the world. In addition to this India is providing world class medical facilities at most competitive charges in comparison to the developed countries. For the elective cases [which do not need immediate emergency treatment] India is emerging out to be a preferred destination. India now has world class hospitals, best qualified doctors ,best infrastructure, and best possible Medical facilities. Under the medical tourism, a patient coming to India is also taken to Indian tourist and pilgrim destinations, along with getting best treatment for his illness. All this is provided at a very nominal cost .Its assured that we provide the best medical and travel facilities during your stay in India. The complete package will costs a patient a fraction of the cost that one would have to pay for the medical charges alone, in other European, Middle East or American countries.
3) Indian corporate hospitals have a large pool of doctors, nurses, and support staff ensuring individualized care. The highly skilled personnel, with wide experience and international exposure excel in Cardiology and Cardiothoracic surgery, Orthopedic surgery, Bariatric or Obesity surgery, Gastroenterology, Ophthalmology, Dentistry, and Urology, to name a few. Our hospital partners have exclusive Cosmetic/Plastic surgery departments. Our alliance partners have Centers of Excellence in their specialty areas. All medical investigations are conducted using the latest, technologically advanced and cutting edge diagnostic equipment. Stringent quality assurance exercises consistently ensure reliable and high quality test results in a timely manner. Even though India has many different languages, English is widely spoken. All hospitals have excellent English speaking staff and language or communication is very easy. If English is not your native language, we can arrange translators in most major international languages to be with you during your Indian tour. India has kept pace with the latest in technology and its application has been widely felt in the health industry. Moreover, India's strong pharmaceutical sector has gained international recognition.
4) Understanding the culture will help the Indian hospitals in understanding the customer needs and attracting the foreign customers. A part of success of Bangkok's Bumrungrad Hospital can be attributed to its good understanding about the culture of the countries from where its patients come. Such an understanding helped the hospital to understand the customer needs and provide amenities that make them feel at home. Moreover, understanding their culture and language help the doctors in making proper diagnosis of the patient’s problem through better interaction. This helps the patients to recover faster. In turn, it enhances the customer satisfaction and reputation of Indian hospitals.
Q2. Naresh Trehan, Executive Director of EHIRC feels that accreditation of hospitals, uniform price banding like in the developed countries and organized campaigns will encourage more overseas patients to get treated here. What significance does this suggestions hold for a service provider like Apollo Hospitals?
A2.An Apollo hospital is a leading hospital chain in South Asia. However, unlike leading hospitals in other South-East Asian countries like Singapore and Thailand, which are attracting a significant number of foreign patients, Apollo could not capitalize on its strengths. Despite being a leading hospital chain in Asia and having world class medical facilities it was able to attract only 96,000 patients till date as compared to 3,00,000 patients that Bangkok’s Bumrungrad hospital attracted in the year 2002. In order to attract more foreign patients, Apollo hospitals need to take measures to make the hospital a preferred destination for foreign patients. Apollo lacks proper credentials to project it as a world-class hospital to foreign customers as well as insurance companies, which provide health cover to the patients. So obtaining an accreditation from an international agency will enhance the credibility of the hospital internationally. This will also encourage international insurance companies to extend the health cover for foreign patients who prefer to get treated at Apollo.
Even though Apollo hospitals possess the requisites to be termed as world class health institution, the hospital could not draw foreign patients due to lack of awareness about it among the international customers. Hence, the hospital should increase its promotional activities in countries where it gets considerable number of patients. It needs to promote its services in the foreign country through various channels. It can open information centers in foreign countries to create awareness about its services. It can also open facilitation centers in those countries to diagnose the patient’s problem, and suggest the treatment and its details to patients. Apollo can also tie-up with foreign hospitals, which can refer their patients to India. Another area of promotion is public relations. Apollo can launch periodic public relation activities to make them aware about the hospital and its services.
