Spending on private healthcare in India is slated to jump by almost
10 percent per year and account for 13 percent of Indian household
consumption by 2025.
Spending on healthcare in India remains
drastically low—about 4 percent of the GDP.
But a growing middle class as well as a booming
medical tourism trade could mean a push for premium services. Spending on private healthcare in
India is slated to jump by almost 10 percent per
year and account for 13 percent of Indian household consumption by 2025—surpassing levels in
Brazil, China and Germany. In response, healthcare providers are projected to spend more than
US$1 billion on IT in 2014, a 4-percent increase
from 2013.
PROJECT SPOTLIGHTS
Aster DM Healthcare, a healthcare conglomerate
building a presence across India, has launched
Aster Medcity, a US$300 million hospital project
in the state of Kerala. By the end of 2010, the
land for the hospital, which will be more than
3. 2 million square feet (927,300 square meters),
had been acquired.
For project manager Abey Mathew, PMP, one
of the biggest challenges—and successes—has
involved schedule compression. The project’s
start date had to be delayed because of legal
approvals, but the target completion date was not
moved. “The design phase overlapped with
the construction phase, which was compli-
cated but also cut down on our overall timeline
significantly,” he says.
Because the developer wanted to achieve a
LEED gold rating, local environmental considerations played a large role in the project plan and
design. A master project document incorporated
input from team members while keeping them all
informed of any changes to the hospital’s design,
which were made after input from medical experts.
With stakeholders based in different parts of the
world, including corporate headquarters in Dubai
and an architecture team in the United States, Mr.
Mathew had to manage a steady diet of conference
calls and status documents to keep the team on
track. The team held several workshops to test different design concepts, which helped ensure that
significant changes wouldn’t be suggested during
construction. The team successfully commissioned
the hospital in February.
While Kerala is a hub for medical tourism in
India, organizations are looking to other cities as
well. Manipal Health Enterprises, for example, is
investing INR1 billion in projects to increase medical tourism in Rajasthan, India’s largest state.
Healthcare
