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Healthcare outsourcing – the ‘in’ thing  (View Comments)

Yasmin Taj

Posted On Monday, July 12, 2010 at 10:15:05 AM

The concept of outsourcing various services has become a highly popular concept in various industries in recent times. It is indeed spreading its reach to many new and untouched sectors too. Though outsourcing in the IT, ITeS, legal, HR and knowledge sectors has been a popular concept for quite sometime now, one sector which is now taking on to outsourcing in a big way is the Healthcare Industry.

Outsourcing in the healthcare sector has come a long way — from low-end claims processing and medical transcription to medical analytics and clinical processing. Outsourcing for department of radio-diagnosis has been around for many years. However, outsourcing of therapeutic departments is a new concept and oncology outsourcing is an important part of this trend.

Growing each day

Many healthcare organisations are finding that diverse functions can be outsourced without affecting the core competency of health care. So, why is the trend becoming so popular these days? According to Dr Arun Kumar Goel, director - oncology & head - surgical oncology, Galaxy Cancer Institute, Pushpanjali Crosslay Hospital, “Outsourcing in healthcare has definitely become a rising trend in recent years. The reason behind this rising trend is rapid development of healthcare in the country. Increasing cost of high technology equipment is one reason. In many fields, rapid developments have taken place in technology and the equipment has become very expensive. Many hospitals are outsourcing to reduce their capital expenditure. Secondly, evaluating the technological specifications of the latest equipment and getting competitive pricing is a very complex exercise. By outsourcing the facility involving complex and costly equipment, the hospital owners are reducing their risk in terms of technology evaluation and other factors e.g. potential returns. Thirdly, very complex technology, rapid technological changes and rapid advances in healthcare mean that the concerned personnel (both doctors and other technical staff) need to be constantly updated about the latest changes.”

Dr Harsh Mahajan, medical & managing director, Mahajan Imaging informs, “I agree that outsourcing in the healthcare sector has become a rising trend, especially in the fields of radiology and imaging, nuclear medicine, oncology, dental services and ophthalmology. This trend, which started about a decade ago, is because of several factors. Firstly, the capital costs for imaging and oncology services are very high and outsourcing helps to reduce initial capital costs that a new hospital has to incur. Secondly, with increasing number of healthcare facilities being setup, it is becoming tougher to find competent medical specialists in various fields, especially for small to medium seized hospitals whose pockets may not be very deep. Good specialists are easily attracted to large multi-centre organisations who concentrate on a specific field as chances of growth and development appear to be better. Certain hospitals who have obsolete equipment and want to upgrade to the current level also find it much easier to outsource than to invent on their own.”

Opportunities abound

Since the sector is growing at such a rapid speed, it is obvious that career opportunities in the sector are increasing too. So, what kind of career opportunities can be looked at in this sector of Healthcare Outsourcing? “Since ultimately these companies will become large as they do multiple centres there would be career opportunities on the administrative side similar to multi-chain businesses in any other field. Predominantly however this is to provide occupation and growth opportunities for specialised medical personnel,” states Dr Mahajan.

Dr Goel shares that, as such, outsourcing in healthcare does not lead to any new kind of jobs but has demand for the same kind of jobs available in any medical centre. “The same doctors/technical persons who would be required otherwise by a hospital are needed even in an outsourced system. Outsourcing however gives an opportunity for doctors and other technical persons to become entrepreneurs with an ownership stake in the venture. There are many advantages of this like commitment of skilled people to the centre, higher level of motivation due to ownership, better patient service in terms of both treatment quality and satisfaction and improved cost efficiency leading to reduction in cost of care,” he explains.

Join the league

So, if you are already there in the healthcare sector or want to make a career here, trying out the outsourcing part of it can be a good career move. So, what are the skills and qualifications required? “These are no different from those required in non-outsourced hospital departments where one has to be qualified in that particular medical field and competence and experience levels are essential,” Dr Mahajan points out. According to Dr Goel, “The focus is on identifying people with skill/motivation and then focus on giving them work satisfaction, developing their skills and retaining them for the long term.”

An industry growing rapidly and heading towards more success is certainly where one can think of making a good career in. Healthcare outsourcing is going to be big in coming days and if you are keen, this is just the right time!

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