Introduction to Apollo Groups of Hospitals
Apollo Hospital Enterprise Limited (AHEL) is Asia’s leading player in healthcare services in the private sector. In 1979, it was integrated as a public limited company. Led by its chairman Dr. Prathap C Reddy, the Chennai-based hospital was a comprehensive 250-bed medical institution that focussed mainly on speciality and super-specialities in more than 50 departments. A vast network of top primary, secondary and tertiary clinics and healthcare institutions are owned and operated by AHEL across India (Shaurya et al, 2009).
Today, the Apollo hospitals groups comprises of
More than 8500 beds across 50 hospitals within India and abroad,
Local clinics and diagnostic centres
Chain of Apollo Pharmacies
Health insurance services
Medical Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)
Clinical Research units; all operating in state-of-the-art medical science.
As one of the largest healthcare groups in Asia, the Apollo group of hospitals has grown exponentially across the globe. Its growth is said to be in line with India’s growth in global healthcare services. Apollo Hospitals is passionate about offering the best standards of patient care. Its vision for the next stage of development and growth is to “Touch a Billion Lives” (AHEL, 2012). Its mission is to ensure that every individual is given access quality and affordable healthcare services of international standards, true to its foundational principles. The management is committed to achieve and maintain excellence in research, education and medical services for the benefit of mankind. Apollo Hospitals claims to maintain the top quality healthcare standards with a benchmark of more than 7.4 million treated patients, over 3 million preventive health check-ups conducted, 98.5 per cent success rate in nearly 50,000 cardiac surgeries, and counting (AHEL, 2012). The legacy of improving and touching lives lies at the roots of the Apollo philosophy which is experience, excellence, expertise and research. Being India’s first corporate healthcare organization, the Apollo group has been the first to launch healthcare centres outside the nation and the first to attract foreign investment. The merger between AHEL’s three group companies, namely Indian Hospitals Corporation Ltd, Om Sindoori Hospitals Ltd, and Deccan Hospitals Corporation Ltd has been instrumental in helping the Apollo group to raise funds at a better rate and merging inventory has saved approximately 10 per cent of the material price. An investment plan involving Rs. 2000 crore in underway for building 15 new hospitals in India and neighbouring countries like Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Malaysia. The implementation of Information Technology in the day-to-day operations of Apollo group’s largest hospital, Indraprashta Apollo, focuses on the degree of the automation drive in the organization. It was realized that in order for a modern and leaner healthcare organization to function effectively, all the business processes need to be linked to IT. Therefore, an end-to-end integrated solution was needed; which in turn led to the development of HIS or Hospital Information System, a vital component of the hospital inception project. Today, the Apollo Group boasts of a merged HIS that enables various processes and functional areas of the hospital to be integrated for a smooth workflow. Typically, the hospital’s work processes are grouped into two categories, namely the Patient area and the Non-Patient area. The former comprises of in- and out-patient and the latter comprised of all the back-end areas like housekeeping, finance, logistics, HR department, engineering, etc (Shaurya et al, 2009). A major benefit of HIS is that it allows for the retrieval of medical information and records of patients at a single click of a button, which in turn saves precious time even during emergencies. Furthermore, HIS also performs as the hospital’s ERP with its automation of several back-end departments like finance/ accounting and inventory that are seen in integration with the patient areas where necessary.
A very efficient mailing system has been developed by the hospital for its staff, based on Microsoft Exchange. Mailing applications, data related to company policies, employee leave details, and company’s basic information is run by the company’s Intranet (Shaurya et al, 2009).
The key inputs of healthcare industries are
hospitals
medical insurance
health equipments
medical software
In recent years, the healthcare sector in India has evolved and developed dramatically. It has now become a US$ 17 billion industry and is rapidly expanding with a yearly growth rate of 13% per annum. By 2012, the Indian healthcare sector has already become a Rs. 270,000 crore industry (Pobari, 2009). With more than 4 million healthcare workers, the healthcare sector has become one of the largest and widespread service sectors in the nation’s economy.
Factors like number of people served shape the healthcare industry; India’s massive population indicates a lucrative opportunity.
Political factors:
Even after six decades of independence, the Indian government has failed to offer basic health and medical services to people. For improving healthcare facilities, special aid must be given to private healthcare sector. Majority of the bigger projects tend to fail due to the long gestation period seen within private healthcare industry. Therefore, government ought to supply private healthcare sector with certain concessions, such as concession in electricity tariff, free land for building small hospitals, etc. Once such institutions begin to make profits, the government will automatically receive the revenue through tax.
Economic Factors:
India’s healthcare sector, post the IT euphoria, is the upcoming boom in the nation. Establishing hospitals, such as the Apollo group, is a tough task. In comparison to other developed countries, the number of healthcare institutions in India is very less. Insufficient provision of medical facilities is seen even in urban areas, while the rural areas have only one or two doctors per village who might not be well-qualified. State governments must try to set up joint ventures all across the state by taking assistance from the World Bank. Funds of nearly Rs. 700 crore can be borrowed from The World Bank for setting-upstate healthcare systems and development projects. (Pobari, 2009) As a matter of fact, people in India do not receive faster and affordable hospital facilities due to the higher medicinal costs. Nonetheless, this situation can be altered with increasing contributions from third party payment via Medical and Allied Insurance or compensation from the State governments. This arrangement will further give rise to employment opportunities to several individuals. Additionally, increase in income can result in increase in the lifestyle and standard of living. Hence, health and lifestyle changes of people are understood precisely. This gives way to specialized treatments, doctors and healthcare centres.
Social Factors:
A specific percent of beds need to be reserved for poor patients. For instance, in Mumbai, 20% of beds ought to be reserved for poor patients. Monitoring and understanding health needs of local poor people is crucial, this can be performed through open counselling and check-up centres. Educate the poor masses about hygiene and sanitation. Hospital wastes such as used syringe needles, waste blood, bottles, etc must be safely disposed to take proper care of the environment. Campaigns and regular heath check-ups to spread awareness on several diseases must be conducted. In short, the social element of health care institutions like the Apollo hospitals is to ensure that people are given the latest treatments and drugs at reasonable costs or free and that the hospital treatments and facilities are not just limited to rich people.
Technological Factors:
Recent years have demonstrated how Information Technology is responsible for changing the face of the healthcare sector. IT systems have not only improved the quality of healthcare services but also transformed the way healthcare is delivered to the public. Inventions like computer based HIS and networks, medical case histories, decision support systems, telemedicine, real time image transfers, advanced mechanisms for circulating health related data to patients have started to shape the cost, quality and availability of healthcare facilities. Today’s state-of-the-art technologies, when implemented within a hospital set-up, can support big databases, faster deployment of health information, network communications, and authentic image transfer (Pobari, 2009).
Apollo Organizational Structure:
An organizational structure is said to be a hierarchical conception of subordination of entities which that work in cooperation to contribute to and serve one common objective. An organizational structure enables the explicit allotment of responsibilities for several roles and functions to several entities. These entities can be branches, departments, work group, individual workers, sites, etc. There may be instances where the established organizational structure does not coincide with facts, developing in operational activities. Such differences reduce organizational performance in the long run. For instance, a faulty or weak organizational structure may hinder cooperation and interrupt the timely completion of projects/ orders and within limited resources and budgets. When a business such as AHEL expands and reaches to global audience, the span of control and assessment will widen. In the long run, the flexibility of the organizational structure will reduce and the creativity will wear out. Hence, organizational structures need to be amended at regular periods to enable smooth operations and recovery.
In case such amendments are hampered due to internal or external factors, the last option is to turn down the organization entirely and prepare for a re-opening in within a completely new establishment. Internal factors like size of company, products, and workforce talent shape the organizational structure. The higher the level of skill set of every worker, the greater will the use of the matrix structure of the business to increase these skills throughout the organization. In regards to the Apollo Group of Hospitals, its organizational structure demonstrates how roles and duties are divided amongst different employees according to their skills and knowledge. Although its branches are situated worldwide, the job allotted to every department within each branch is different. Every department within branches are inter-connected with each other. Apollo hospitals shows a vertical form of organizational structure, therefore the decision made will take longer to be executed.
Suggestions and Conclusion:
The paramedical department of Apollo hospitals need skilled and experienced personnel. Lab services department must have more workers to avoid workload. If the organizational structure of Apollo hospital was horizontal in nature, there would be quick executions of decisions taken at any level. Today, Apollo Hospitals is a global medical organization integrated with owned and managed healthcare institutions, diagnostic centres, pharmacies and consultancy services. As an effort to improve performance and offer quality services to patients, the group also provides services to support business, telemedicine assistance, training sessions, research services and a wide array of other non-commercial projects.
Work Cited
Apollo Hospitals Enterprise Ltd (AHEL). (2012). Company Overview. Retrieved from
http://www.apollohospitals.com/about_company.php
Shaurya, S., Bhattacharjee, S., Singh, G., Kumar, V., Vijayvargia, B., & Banik, R. (2009).
Industry Analysis on Apollo Hospital. Retrieved from
http://www.slideshare.net/SUDEEPSHAURYA/apollo-hospitals-3277361
Pobari, J., (2009). Hospital Indutry. Retrieved from
http://www.managementparadise.com/forums/service-sector-management/123890-
hospital-industry.html
