HealthCare Global Enterprises Limited (HCG), a cancer hospital chain, witnessed a dip of nearly 50 per cent of patient inflow in its hospitals due to Covid pandemic. The group then survived due to our robust hub and spoke model which came to our rescue, Raj Gore, CEO HealthCare Global Enterprises Limited, told BusinessLine .

“HCG has always had patients coming in from all over the country and abroad. But during the lockdown, most of our patients were unable to reach the hospitals as the transportation was disrupted. But some of our patients, who travel to tier I cities for treatment started approaching hospitals in tier II and III cities and realised they got the same treatment as the tier I city,” he added.

During the pandemic, the group with its nimble-footed strategies like telemedicine and other remote uninterrupted healthcare deliveries was able to handle patients. “By this method we found that 85 percent of our patients were happy and satisfied with the deliveries,” Gore said.

Talking about the challenges, he said: “The pandemic came like a bolt from the blue for the healthcare fraternity. We were all trading in an unknown territory, we had to quickly put together a plan to help our patients and our staff. Though it was stressful, and we all did not know how we were going to be affected, the whole team came together and worked day and night, to set up SoPs, guidelines, creating forms, checklists, and changes at the ground level for the flow of patients.”

“In order to offer patient safety, a single-entry point to the hospital and screening area before the entry point was erected. This helped us to ensure we were allowing only patients or attenders with low risk to enter the hospital,” he added.

Consolidation mode

Explaining the consolidation taking place in the group, Gore said “At HCG, when we talk about being in consolidation mode, we focus our efforts and resources to drive internal performance and being very selective in pursuing any new opportunities, especially in the near term. We are progressing well with respect to the new centres and have recently announced break-even at Borivali while others like Nagpur and South Mumbai are also getting there.”

“The company is also focussing on driving market share and efficiency at our mature centres which are already leaders in their geographies. These are our strategic priorities today and are aligned to our long-term objectives. Continuing the consolidation strategy, we have recently announced cancellation of Kochi cancer project and there are not any pipelines for multi-speciality, IVF or international investments at present,” he added.