HCAH, a leading player in the out-of-hospital care segment in India, offers specialized therapy, recovery, and rehabilitation services at home and through the country’s largest chain of Transition care centers. In an exclusive interaction, Vivek talks about the company’s vision, and how HCAH has evolved into a key element of India’s healthcare infrastructure.

Why having recuperation and rehabilitation service is a much-needed strategy to level the largely unmet needs of the healthcare system in India?

Whenever we suffer from a disease, it leads to a reduction in our ability to do what we would normally, and our desire would always be to get back to our original Quality of Life (QoL). Hence, reducing disability or improving QoL is the essence of what the customer wants!

Hospitals are neither designed nor incentivised for the same. And because of this, a lot of people remain below their potential QoL and suffer from an avoidable disability. Out-of-hospital care can help bridge this gap while reducing the pressure on the hospital infrastructure, ensuring a smooth transition from hospital to home, minimizing the chances of re-admissions, giving quality healthcare, and reducing treatment costs.

How post-hospitalisation care, rehabilitation, and transition care have enabled a paradigm shift in providing care beyond the hospital setting to virtually anywhere?

There are two ways through which these services have got a better reach than the traditional hospital setup:

1. High capital costs and the unavailability of doctors in tier 2 & tier 3 towns are the major challenges to setting up a well-equipped hospital. Our centers can be set up at minimal cost as compared to hospitals and don’t require super specialist doctors to be present physically. Hence, our centers can be set up far and wide.
2. We are highly invested in technology that helps in delivering standardized care virtually anywhere in the country and that equips people to deliver better care, either through monitoring devices or treatment devices.

Covid-19 accelerated this push of technology and at HCAH, we have treated over 10lac patients during the pandemic and largely we have adapted to virtual mediums.

How does technology help to cater to the rehabilitation needs of people? How is HCAH using digital and virtual technologies for improving patient experience and outcomes?

Technology has touched almost every aspect of healthcare. The vital phase of rehabilitation can also be improved with investment in technology. We have invested in both hardware and software technology to deliver better outcomes. For eg:

1. We have an investment in robotic hands, gamified balance labs, speech labs, OT labs, specialized treadmills with unweighing systems, tilt tables, and small muscle rehab tables to deliver world-class rehabilitation helping patients recover from their bedridden status to walking independently.
2. On the software side, we have invested in monitoring the progress of patients, their records, and showcasing outcomes. We have also invested in developing a digital rehab platform to cater to patients across the country through our app.

Over the last 10 years, HCAH has made significant progress. Can you highlight some of the key milestones in the journey and HCAH’s strategy?

HCAH has carved its position as India’s trusted out-of-hospital care provider becoming the market leader with the country’s largest chain of Transition Care Centres (TCC) having around 250 beds across 5 centers. We provide In-patient rehab, long-term acute care, and skilled nursing facilities through these centers. We were the first in the country to deliver 'ICU at home' and chemotherapy at home. Recently, we acquired Seniority which is the largest digital geriatric platform in the country. We run 60+ chronic disease management programs with almost all top pharma companies in the country and are the largest player in that space. We are perennially paranoid about customer delight, leading to an NPS > 65% and google ratings > 4.9. We have grown to a 1500+ member organization that has served 40,00,000+ patients across 70 cities. We are the first player in the country to get QAI accreditation in home care and we are the first TCC that got NABH accreditation.

We have raised investments from marquee investors such as Burman Family (Promoters of Dabur), Quadria Capital, a Singapore-based healthcare fund and ABC Impact. Our vision is to improve QoL and emphasize creating an impact in society.

What are HCAH’s plans for expansion?

We plan to continue our dominance in the rehab sector by taking our number of beds from 250 to 750 beds by FY24. Leveraging our recent acquisition of Seniority, we will expand our products and services to become a one-stop shop for the rapidly aging population. With the above, we are on our way to creating India's largest "Out-of-Hospital service delivery platform" to improve access and affordability of healthcare infrastructure.

What trends do you feel will define out-of-hospital care in the next 5 years?

Out-of-hospital care is catching up with the new healthcare norms in the current health-tech industry and will be something to look out for in the near future. We had already witnessed how the hospital infrastructure collapsed during medical emergencies like Covid-19. During such times, chronically ill and immune-compromised patients could seek specialized care in TCC like the ones provided by HCAH or in their homes. With innovative technologies such as AI/ML and VR emerging each day, predicting, diagnosing, remote monitoring, and treating patients have become more effortless and manageable in this sector. All these factors are going to take the sector to upward of US$35bn in the next 5 years (Redseer Report). Besides, elderly care is another crucial bit that is taking a new turn. India’s elderly would form 25% of the total population by 2030. With more financial independence and tech savviness, the elderly are increasingly preferring rehab services, instead of depending on their children.