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- Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH) is an innovative Indian healthcare provider
- In just 15 years NH has become one of India’s leading hospital groups
- Founded by Dr Devi Shetty, a heart surgeon, NH treats nearly 2m patients a year
- NH has built an international reputation for affordable quality healthcare
- A number of large institutional investors are betting that NH can grow
- Is NH’s model of affordable quality healthcare replicable outside of India?
Will Devi Shetty have a major influence on global healthcare?
PART 1
Dr. Devi Shetty, founder and chairman of Narayana Hrudayalaya (NH), an innovative Indian healthcare provider, wants to transform the way healthcare is delivered across the world. Can he do it?
This Commentary is in three parts. Part 1 is a general introduction to NH and its 2015 initial public offering. It describes some of NH’s internal challenges and suggests that it is reasonable to assume that these will be overcome given its position within a buoyant Indian healthcare market. Part 2 describes some key aspects of NH’s model for affordable quality healthcare. In particular, it shows how Shetty has embraced information technology and some aspects of scientific management to create mega hospitals in India that delivers sustainable high-volume affordable quality care. Part 3 discusses some of the challenges associated with replicating the NH model outside of India. It briefly describes Shetty’s initiative to create a medical city in the Cayman Islands to capture share from the North and South American healthcare markets. It discusses some of the barriers to replicating the model in the UK and other developed markets and suggests that besides India; Africa, - despite its complexities and challenges - might offer NH growth opportunities. It also suggests that NH could play a leading role in training a new generation of healthcare professionals specifically attuned to the vast and escalating healthcare needs of developing economies, and this could be commercially valuable.
London-based financial institution CDC and a number of others think Shetty can provide the world with a new model of affirdable healthcare. In December 2015 the CDC Group, owned by the British government, with an investment portfolio valued at £2.8bn, backed NH’s initial public offering (IPO) with an investment of US$48m. The IPO valued NH at US$1bn. The issue was 8.6 times oversubscribed, with most of the demand coming from foreign institutional investors. Beside CDC, other anchor investors included the government of Singapore, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, BlackRock, and Prudential.
Dharmesh Mehta, former managing director and CEO of Axis Capital, one of the bankers to the issue, said: “We got one of the best anchor books, with several long-term investors supporting it. Investors are bullish about the Indian healthcare space, especially hospitals, and Narayana Hrudayalaya has a unique business model, and the backing of good quality management.”
In the video below Shetty argues that, “Healthcare of the future will not be an extension of the past.” Shetty has a good understanding about how technology is revolutionizing the way healthcare is delivered and changing its structure and organization to such an extent that the future of healthcare will be dramatically different from what it is today. Healthcare is moving beyond the hospital towards patient self-knowledge and empowerment. Home-healthcare services facilitate enhanced doctor-patient connectivity where it had not been previously possible.
This Commentary is in three parts. Part 1 is a general introduction to NH and its 2015 initial public offering. It describes some of NH’s internal challenges and suggests that it is reasonable to assume that these will be overcome given its position within a buoyant Indian healthcare market. Part 2 describes some key aspects of NH’s model for affordable quality healthcare. In particular, it shows how Shetty has embraced information technology and some aspects of scientific management to create mega hospitals in India that delivers sustainable high-volume affordable quality care. Part 3 discusses some of the challenges associated with replicating the NH model outside of India. It briefly describes Shetty’s initiative to create a medical city in the Cayman Islands to capture share from the North and South American healthcare markets. It discusses some of the barriers to replicating the model in the UK and other developed markets and suggests that besides India; Africa, - despite its complexities and challenges - might offer NH growth opportunities. It also suggests that NH could play a leading role in training a new generation of healthcare professionals specifically attuned to the vast and escalating healthcare needs of developing economies, and this could be commercially valuable.
London-based financial institution CDC and a number of others think Shetty can provide the world with a new model of affirdable healthcare. In December 2015 the CDC Group, owned by the British government, with an investment portfolio valued at £2.8bn, backed NH’s initial public offering (IPO) with an investment of US$48m. The IPO valued NH at US$1bn. The issue was 8.6 times oversubscribed, with most of the demand coming from foreign institutional investors. Beside CDC, other anchor investors included the government of Singapore, Morgan Stanley, Nomura, BlackRock, and Prudential.
Dharmesh Mehta, former managing director and CEO of Axis Capital, one of the bankers to the issue, said: “We got one of the best anchor books, with several long-term investors supporting it. Investors are bullish about the Indian healthcare space, especially hospitals, and Narayana Hrudayalaya has a unique business model, and the backing of good quality management.”
In the video below Shetty argues that, “Healthcare of the future will not be an extension of the past.” Shetty has a good understanding about how technology is revolutionizing the way healthcare is delivered and changing its structure and organization to such an extent that the future of healthcare will be dramatically different from what it is today. Healthcare is moving beyond the hospital towards patient self-knowledge and empowerment. Home-healthcare services facilitate enhanced doctor-patient connectivity where it had not been previously possible.
(click to play the video)
Narayana Hrudayalaya
Shetty, who has more than three decades of experience as a cardiac surgeon both in the UK and India, founded NH in 2000. Since then, it has become one of India’s leading healthcare service providers; with a network of 23 multi-specialty, primary and tertiary healthcare facilities, eight heart centers, and 25 primary care facilities, across 32 cities, towns and villages in India. Currently, NH has 5,600 operational beds, which it intends to increase to 30,000 by 2020. NH employs some 12,500 people, including 818 doctors, 5,400 nurses and about 1,660 visiting consultants.
In fiscal year 2015, Narayana provided care to nearly two million patients and undertook more than 51,456 cardiology procedures, 14,000 cardiac surgeries - which accounted for 10% of the national figure - and 184,443 dialysis procedures. Narayana posted revenues of US$219m for fiscal year 2015 and profit after tax of $2m. For the four fiscal years that ended March 31, 2015, the company’s revenues grew at a compounded annual rate of 30%.
In fiscal year 2015, Narayana provided care to nearly two million patients and undertook more than 51,456 cardiology procedures, 14,000 cardiac surgeries - which accounted for 10% of the national figure - and 184,443 dialysis procedures. Narayana posted revenues of US$219m for fiscal year 2015 and profit after tax of $2m. For the four fiscal years that ended March 31, 2015, the company’s revenues grew at a compounded annual rate of 30%.
Access to healthcare for millions of poor people
NH has one of the world’s largest telemedicine networks with 150 centers including 50 in Africa, where Shetty sees further expansion opportunities for NH. The service is free-of-charge and enhances the connectivity between remote health facilities and consultants at Narayana. Shetty, a vocal advocate of affordable healthcare, helped design the Karnataka State government Yeshasvini scheme, which is one of the largest self-funded micro healthcare insurance programs in India. It covers about 2 million people who previously did not have access to healthcare. Participants pay US$1.40 per year, which provides them with free access to over 800 surgical procedures in 400 hospitals. In the past 10 years, 85,000 peasant farmers have used the insurance to have surgery.
Challenges
NH faces some challenges. Its profit margins are low and its revenues are mainly derived from three of its largest hospitals, which concentrate on cardiac care and cardiology. As of March 2015, the company’s recent acquisitions and expansion into the Cayman Islands, where it opened a 130-bed tertiary hospital, were making losses.
However, NH’s acquisitions and expansion are strategic and their pay-offs are expected to accrue over the next four years. Also, higher yields from value-added therapies such as oncology, neurology and gastroenterology are anticipated to improve Narayana’s average revenue per operating bed (ARPOB). The company’s strategy to focus on the mid-income segment of the market is predicted to increase its utilization, given that this is a large, rapidly growing and immediately addressable market. Narayana is also advantaged by its history of efficient use of capital: it has a debt-equity ratio of only about 0.3.
Market drivers
In 2015 investors might have been influenced by the falling gold, oil and real estate markets and the relative attraction of the Indian healthcare sector, buoyed by changing demographics, rising incomes and a large and expanding middle class, greater health awareness, changes in disease profiles and a rising penetration of health insurance. By 2020 India is expected to be the world’s third largest middleclass consumer market behind China and the US. By 2030 India is projected to surpass both countries with an aggregated consumer spend of some US$13 trillion. A 2019 study by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) suggests that if India continues to grow at her current pace, average household incomes will triple over the next two decades, making the country the world’s fifth-largest consumer economy by 2025, up from the current 12th position.
While recognizing the challenges for India’s healthcare sector, investors must have thought that NH is well positioned to take advantage of the expected explosion in India’s middleclass consumer market. Narayana has a strong brand name and it is one of India’s leading healthcare companies, with significant revenue growth over the past four years. Its services appear cheaper than those of its competitors, such as Chennai’s Apollo Hospitals Limited, which has about four times the revenues of NH and Delhi’s Fortis Healthcare, which is about three times bigger in revenue terms. This suggests that NH has scope for substantial growth.
PART 2
International attention
Healthcare systems worldwide consume a large and escalating share of national incomes and costs and quality of care are the two most hotly debated issues among healthcare professionals. Does Shetty have an answer?
For many years, Shetty has attracted international attention. For example, in 2010 a UK prime ministerial delegation visited NH’s Medical City in Bengaluru. Vince Cable, then the UK’s Business Secretary, said: “What we're trying to do in the UK is to get more for less. Dr Shetty has shown us a model by which we do not need to accept inferior healthcare because there's less money, but actually how to get more out of the system for less resource,” Cable described his visit as “inspirational” and went on to say, "I just found it overwhelming. NH combines what we always see in a good health system, which is humane humanitarian behaviour, with sound economics."
For many years, Shetty has attracted international attention. For example, in 2010 a UK prime ministerial delegation visited NH’s Medical City in Bengaluru. Vince Cable, then the UK’s Business Secretary, said: “What we're trying to do in the UK is to get more for less. Dr Shetty has shown us a model by which we do not need to accept inferior healthcare because there's less money, but actually how to get more out of the system for less resource,” Cable described his visit as “inspirational” and went on to say, "I just found it overwhelming. NH combines what we always see in a good health system, which is humane humanitarian behaviour, with sound economics."
The Henry Ford of heart surgery
Worldwide, the demand for healthcare services is rising faster than its supply. By focusing on an endeavour to make doctors more effective, NH has demonstrated that it can deliver what healthcare systems need: enhanced patient outcomes for less money. “We have invested in infrastructure. Similar infrastructure in the UK and the US is used for about eight to nine hours a day. Ours is used for 14 to 15 hours a day, which allows us to perform the high volume of procedures,” says Shetty. In 2009 the Wall Street Journal referred to him as “the Henry Ford of Heart Surgery”.
In a similar way Henry Ford used large factories and mass-production techniques to manufacture a large number of quality cars, which many ordinary people could afford; so, Shetty developed large hospitals and a significant skill base, which he used to improve the quality of surgical procedures and reduce costs. This enabled him to offer large numbers of people access to affordable high-quality healthcare.
NH doctors, who are on fixed salaries, work in teams. Each team comprises a specialist, a number of junior doctors, trainees, nurses and paramedics. A bypass surgery typically takes about five hours. The actual grafting, which is the critical part, takes only an hour and is performed by an experienced specialist surgeon, while harvesting of the veins/arteries, opening and closing of the chest, suturing and other procedures are carried out by junior doctors. Nurses and paramedics handle the preparation and the aftercare of the patient. This Henry Ford-type process leaves the specialist free to perform more surgeries. As the volume of surgeries increase, outcomes improve, and costs are reduced. A heart surgery at NH costs less than US$2,000 per operation.
NH’s lower costs have not come at the expense of quality. Narayana’s mortality rate for coronary artery bypass procedures is 1.27% and its infection rate 1%, which are as good as that of US hospitals. Incidence of bedsores after cardiac surgery is anywhere between 8% and 40% globally, whereas at NH it has been almost zero in the last four years.
In a similar way Henry Ford used large factories and mass-production techniques to manufacture a large number of quality cars, which many ordinary people could afford; so, Shetty developed large hospitals and a significant skill base, which he used to improve the quality of surgical procedures and reduce costs. This enabled him to offer large numbers of people access to affordable high-quality healthcare.
NH doctors, who are on fixed salaries, work in teams. Each team comprises a specialist, a number of junior doctors, trainees, nurses and paramedics. A bypass surgery typically takes about five hours. The actual grafting, which is the critical part, takes only an hour and is performed by an experienced specialist surgeon, while harvesting of the veins/arteries, opening and closing of the chest, suturing and other procedures are carried out by junior doctors. Nurses and paramedics handle the preparation and the aftercare of the patient. This Henry Ford-type process leaves the specialist free to perform more surgeries. As the volume of surgeries increase, outcomes improve, and costs are reduced. A heart surgery at NH costs less than US$2,000 per operation.
NH’s lower costs have not come at the expense of quality. Narayana’s mortality rate for coronary artery bypass procedures is 1.27% and its infection rate 1%, which are as good as that of US hospitals. Incidence of bedsores after cardiac surgery is anywhere between 8% and 40% globally, whereas at NH it has been almost zero in the last four years.
It can’t be done!
“When we started our journey, we were discouraged by people saying that, ‘there is no such thing as low-cost high-quality healthcare’, and that ‘healthcare is expensive and will always be expensive’. Only when people become wealthy, they can afford quality healthcare . . . . . When I grew up, I looked at some of the richest countries in the world, struggling to offer healthcare to its citizens and quickly realized that even if India became a rich country, it still would not be able to guarantee healthcare to everyone. We had to change the way we were doing things and this is what we’ve done,” says Shetty.
Socializing the P&L
UK doctors and health providers often talk about reducing the costs of healthcare, but, says Shetty, “doctors usually have no idea how much they are spending”. In contrast, at noon every day all NH doctors receive an text with NH’s previous day’s revenue, expenses and EBIDTA (earnings before interest, depreciation, taxation and amortization). According to Dr. Ashutosh Raghuvanshi, NH’s CEO, “When you look at financials at the end of the month, it’s a post-mortem. When you look at them daily, you can do something to change things”. The daily data doctors receive describes their operations, and the various levels of reimbursement. “It’s not just a cheap process, it’s effective,” says Raghuvanshi.
In the video below Shetty suggests that a key factor for the future success of NHS England will be its ability to re-invent itself, increase its focus on costs and outcomes, benchmark key functions with successful international comparators and instil strict financial discipline in doctors, “because they represent the biggest spend in healthcare systems,” says Shetty.
In the video below Shetty suggests that a key factor for the future success of NHS England will be its ability to re-invent itself, increase its focus on costs and outcomes, benchmark key functions with successful international comparators and instil strict financial discipline in doctors, “because they represent the biggest spend in healthcare systems,” says Shetty.
(click to play the video)
Information technology
Healthcare systems require radical change at every level in order to reduce the vast and upward trajectory of unsustainable costs, improve patient experiences and outcomes, speed the translation of research into therapies and make healthcare accessible to everyone. Information technology helps in these regards. NH regularly mines data to raise the quality of care and patient outcomes. Its business intelligence activities manage real-time data on 30 different parameters that track and support efficiency improvements. Those related to clinical outcomes are then reviewed at a weekly meeting, where all major clinical procedures are discussed among doctors and best practices shared. This way NH maps the cost effectiveness of each doctor.
PART 3
Affordable quality healthcare outside India
An example of Shetty’s model of affordable quality healthcare working effectively outside of India is Narayana Health Cayman Islands. The Cayman government has given Shetty a 200-acre site and New York investors have backed him to develop and operate a Health City. In 2014 NH opened its first phase, a 130-bed tertiary hospital targeting the elective surgery markets of North and South America. “Narayana Health City Cayman will demonstrate how over-priced and inefficient US hospitals actually are and show that lower costs and better outcomes can be achieved outside of India just as well as in Bengaluru,” says Shetty.
The UK
There are numerous barriers to adopting the Shetty model in the UK and in other developed economies. NHS England has its innovators and there are efforts to roll-out innovations nationally, but they have limited success, mainly because innovations tend to be isolated and local and not widely known across different NHS functions or beyond sector boundaries. The lack of centralised expertise in NHS England skews perspectives and limits resources. This presents a significant obstacle to the adoption of compelling healthcare innovations, such as those demonstrated by Narayana.
Further, there is doctor-resistance to innovations in the UK. Doctors are trained to identify and implement proven and recommended treatment protocols for various disease states. To deviate from this is to run the risk of litigation. Further, health professionals in the UK are increasingly time-pressed, with the result that acquiring and adopting new and innovative pathways of care takes a back seat. See, Meeting the challenges of affordable quality healthcare. and, The end of doctors.
Further, there is doctor-resistance to innovations in the UK. Doctors are trained to identify and implement proven and recommended treatment protocols for various disease states. To deviate from this is to run the risk of litigation. Further, health professionals in the UK are increasingly time-pressed, with the result that acquiring and adopting new and innovative pathways of care takes a back seat. See, Meeting the challenges of affordable quality healthcare. and, The end of doctors.
Medical tourism
"Medical tourism" refers to traveling to another country for medical care. The world population is aging and becoming more affluent at rates that surpass the availability of quality healthcare resources. In addition, out-of-pocket medical costs of critical and elective procedures continue to rise, while nations offering universal care, such as the UK, are faced with ever-increasing resource burdens. These drivers are forcing patients to pursue cross-border healthcare options either to save money or to avoid long waits for treatment.
In 2015 it was estimated that the worldwide medical tourism market was between US$50bn and US$65bn and growing at an annual rate of between 15%-25%. In 2015 some 1.5 million US residents travelled abroad for care, up from 0.5 million in 2007. Two of their top destinations were Costa Rica and India. Costa Rica can yield savings on standard surgical procedures of between 45% and 65%, and India, between 65% and 90%.
Beyond the US, the OECD estimates that there are up to 50 million medical tourists worldwide annually. The most common procedures that people undergo on medical tourism trips include heart surgery, dentistry and cosmetic procedures. People are attracted to well-known, internationally accredited hospitals, which have a flow of medical tourists, internationally trained experienced health professionals, a sustained reputation for clinical excellence and a history of healthcare innovation and achievement.
Already, NH attracts medical tourists from over 50 countries, it has an international reputation for excellence, many of its top health professionals have been trained and have gained clinical experience in the US and Europe and it has a significant track record in high demand areas, particularly heart surgery. This suggests that NH is well positioned to take advantage in the future growth of medical tourism and this is probably something taken into account by NH’s anchor investors.
In 2015 it was estimated that the worldwide medical tourism market was between US$50bn and US$65bn and growing at an annual rate of between 15%-25%. In 2015 some 1.5 million US residents travelled abroad for care, up from 0.5 million in 2007. Two of their top destinations were Costa Rica and India. Costa Rica can yield savings on standard surgical procedures of between 45% and 65%, and India, between 65% and 90%.
Beyond the US, the OECD estimates that there are up to 50 million medical tourists worldwide annually. The most common procedures that people undergo on medical tourism trips include heart surgery, dentistry and cosmetic procedures. People are attracted to well-known, internationally accredited hospitals, which have a flow of medical tourists, internationally trained experienced health professionals, a sustained reputation for clinical excellence and a history of healthcare innovation and achievement.
Already, NH attracts medical tourists from over 50 countries, it has an international reputation for excellence, many of its top health professionals have been trained and have gained clinical experience in the US and Europe and it has a significant track record in high demand areas, particularly heart surgery. This suggests that NH is well positioned to take advantage in the future growth of medical tourism and this is probably something taken into account by NH’s anchor investors.
Africa
Because of entrenched obstacles to change in the healthcare systems of developed economies, Shetty has indicated an interest in Africa. In the past, private healthcare providers have neglected African healthcare; it has been underserved by governments, and mostly reliant on irregular help from abroad. However, this is about to change, and there is some evidence to suggest that healthcare reform in Africa is beginning. A 2016 African Healthcare Summit suggested that African healthcare spending is expected to grow to 6.4% of GDP in 2016, making it the second highest category of government investment. A Report from the International Finance Corporation (IFC) of the World Bank suggests that, over the next 10 years, there will be, “considerable African demand” for investment in hospitals, medicines and health professionals and meeting this demand, “can deliver strong financial returns.”
Healthcare providers also can take heart that a number of African countries are trying to establish or widen social insurance programs to give medical cover to more of their citizens. Further, there are six African countries with projected compounded annual growth rates (CAGR) for 2014 through 2017 of between 7.12% and 9.7%. These are: Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia.
Notwithstanding, Africa is facing a dual challenge of communicable and parasitic diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS and growing rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer and respiratory diseases. Increased urbanisation in many African countries, along with growing incomes and changing lifestyles, have led to a rise in the rate of chronic conditions, which are projected to overtake communicable diseases as Africa’s principal health challenge by 2030. This suggests that despite the fledging signs of change, over the next decade African healthcare will still be challenged. However, over the past 15 years, NH’s has demonstrated capabilities to meet and overcome similar challenges in India, which positions it well to succeed in Africa where it already has a non-trivial telemedicine presence.
Healthcare providers also can take heart that a number of African countries are trying to establish or widen social insurance programs to give medical cover to more of their citizens. Further, there are six African countries with projected compounded annual growth rates (CAGR) for 2014 through 2017 of between 7.12% and 9.7%. These are: Rwanda, Tanzania, Mozambique, Cote d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Ethiopia.
Notwithstanding, Africa is facing a dual challenge of communicable and parasitic diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS and growing rates of chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity, cancer and respiratory diseases. Increased urbanisation in many African countries, along with growing incomes and changing lifestyles, have led to a rise in the rate of chronic conditions, which are projected to overtake communicable diseases as Africa’s principal health challenge by 2030. This suggests that despite the fledging signs of change, over the next decade African healthcare will still be challenged. However, over the past 15 years, NH’s has demonstrated capabilities to meet and overcome similar challenges in India, which positions it well to succeed in Africa where it already has a non-trivial telemedicine presence.
Training health professionals
The healthcare and wellness sectors are positioned to be significant drivers of the world economy in the 21st century. Healthcare is about a US$6 trillion global market, which is increasing. Advances in medical technology, public health and governance have improved healthcare for about 30% of the world’s population. But billions of people still have no access to healthcare.
The WHO estimates that there is a shortage of nearly 13 million healthcare workers globally, but Shetty believes these shortages could be significantly higher. According to the Royal College of General Practitioners the shortage of doctors in the UK is the worst it has been for 40 years. One hundred primary care practices, serving 700,000 patients across Britain, are facing closure and the number of GP-patient consultations is estimated to rise from 338 million in 2013 to 441 million by 2017. UK experts warn that primary care doctors with too many patients will fail to provide adequate healthcare through current delivery methods and they say that this is expected to further drive patients to search online for health-related issues. See: Curing the Problems of General Practice.
Such shortages concern Shetty, who believes that the situation will only be improved with a radical change in the way healthcare is delivered. “This”, says Shetty, “will only be achieved with a change in the way health professionals are trained.” Future health professionals need to be trained for a world of e-patients. Digital classrooms will create new connections between students and health professionals and allow for access to the most current information and resources. Shetty advocates the development of a virtual global medical university, with features that include a cross-country curriculum and a reduced training period. “This is the only way we will increase the much-needed pool of healthcare talent,” says Shetty.
The WHO estimates that there is a shortage of nearly 13 million healthcare workers globally, but Shetty believes these shortages could be significantly higher. According to the Royal College of General Practitioners the shortage of doctors in the UK is the worst it has been for 40 years. One hundred primary care practices, serving 700,000 patients across Britain, are facing closure and the number of GP-patient consultations is estimated to rise from 338 million in 2013 to 441 million by 2017. UK experts warn that primary care doctors with too many patients will fail to provide adequate healthcare through current delivery methods and they say that this is expected to further drive patients to search online for health-related issues. See: Curing the Problems of General Practice.
Such shortages concern Shetty, who believes that the situation will only be improved with a radical change in the way healthcare is delivered. “This”, says Shetty, “will only be achieved with a change in the way health professionals are trained.” Future health professionals need to be trained for a world of e-patients. Digital classrooms will create new connections between students and health professionals and allow for access to the most current information and resources. Shetty advocates the development of a virtual global medical university, with features that include a cross-country curriculum and a reduced training period. “This is the only way we will increase the much-needed pool of healthcare talent,” says Shetty.
Takeaways
While change in Western healthcare systems will neither be quick nor easy, NH’s near to medium term growth will most probably come from India, the Caymans, Africa and other developing countries where the need for quality healthcare is high and growing fast, and the barriers to entry relatively low. In time, however, the US and the UK might be able to benefit from some of Narayana’s best practices so that an increasing percentage Americans may have access to high quality affordable healthcare and NHS England maybe reformed to ensure its survival.
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- In high-income countries populations are aging
- By 2050 the world population of people over 60 is projected to reach 2bn
- Age-related low back pain is the highest contributor to disability in the world
- Over 80% of people will experience back pain at some point in their life
- Older people with back pain have a higher chance of dying prematurely
- The causes of back pain are difficult to determine which presents challenges for the diagnosis and management of the condition
- The US $100bn-a-year American back pain industry is “ineffective”
- Each year 10,000 and 300,000 spine fusion surgeries are carried out in the UK and US respectively
- 20% of spinal fusion surgeries are undertaken without good evidence
- In 10 to 39% of spine surgery patients pain continues or worsens after surgeries
Age of the aged and low back pain
A triumph of 20th century medicine is that it has created the “age of the aged”. By 2050 the world population of people aged 60 and older is projected to be 2bn, up from 900m in 2015. Today, there are 125m people aged 80 and older and by 2050 there is expected to be 434m people in this age group worldwide. The average age of the UK population has reached 40. Some 22% will be over 65 by 2031, and this will exceed the percentage of the UK population under 25. 33% of people born today in the UK can expect to live to 100. However, this medical success is the source of rapidly increasing age-related disorders, which present significant challenges for the UK and other high-income nations. Low back pain (LBP) is the most common age-related pain disorder, and ranked as the highest contributor to disability in the world.
At some point back pain affects 84% of all adults in developed economies. Research published in 2017 in the journal Scoliosis Spinal Disorders suggests that LBP is the most common health problem among older adults that results in pain and disability. The over 65s are the second most common age group to seek medical advice for LBP, which represents a significant and increasing workload for health providers. Each year back pain costs the UK and US Exchequers respectively some £5bn and more than US635bn in medical treatment and lost productivity. LBP accounts for 11% of the total disability of the respective populations. This Commentary discusses therapies for LBP, and describes the changing management landscape for this vast and rapidly growing condition.
Your spine and LBP
Your spine, which supports your back, consists of 24 vertebrae, bones stacked on top of one another. At the bottom of your spine and below your vertebrae are the bones of your sacrum and coccyx. Threading through the entire length of your vertebrae is your spinal cord, which transmits signals from your brain to the rest of your body. Your spinal cord ends in your lower back, and continues as a series of nerves, which resemble a horse’s tail, hence its medical name, ‘cauda equine’. Between each vertebra are discs. In younger people discs contain a high degree of water. This gives them the ability to act like shock absorbers. During the normal aging process discs lose much of their water content and degenerate. Such degenerative spinal structures may result in a herniated disc when the disc nucleus extrudes through the disc’s outer fibres, or a compression of nerve roots, which may lead to radiculopathy. This is a condition more commonly known as sciatica, which is pain caused by compression of a spinal nerve root in the lower back that is often associated with the degeneration of an intervertebral disc, and can manifest itself as pain, numbness, or weakness of the buttock and outer side of the leg.
Challenges in diagnosis
Because your back is comprised of so many connected tissues, which include bones, muscles, ligaments, nerves, tendons, and joints, it is often difficult for doctors to say with confidence what causes back pain even with the help of X-rays and MRI scans. Usually, LBP does not have a serious cause. In the majority of cases LBP will reduce and often disappear within 4 to 6 weeks, and therefore can be self-managed by keeping mobile and taking over-the-counter painkillers. However, in a relatively small proportion of people with LBP, the pain and disability can persist for many months or even years. Once LBP has been present for more than a year few people return to normal activities. There is not sufficient evidence to suggest definitive management pathways for this group that accounts for the majority of the health and social costs associated with LBP.
Assessing treatment options for back pain
Ranjeev Bhangoo, a consultant neurosurgeon at Kings’ College Hospital Trust, London, and the London Neurosurgery Partnership describes the nature and role of intervertebral discs and how treatment options should be assessed.
“When a person presents with a problem in the lower back, which might manifest as leg or arm pain, you need to ask 3 questions: (i) is the history of the pain compatible with a particular disc causing the problem? (ii) Does an examination suggest that a particular disc is causing a problem? And (iii) does a scan show that the disc you thought was the problem is the problem? If all 3 answers align, then there maybe some good reason to consider treatment options. If the 3 answers are not aligned, be weary of a surgeon suggesting intervention because 90% of us will experience back pain at some point in our lives, and 90% of the population don’t need back surgery.”
Back pain requiring immediate medical attention
Although the majority of LBP tends to be benign and temporary, people should seek immediate medical advice if their back pain is associated with certain red flags such as loss of bladder control; loss of weight, fever, upper back or chest pain; or if there is no obvious cause for the pain; or if the pain is accompanied by weakness, loss of sensation or persistent pins and needles in the lower limbs. Also, people with chronic lifetime conditions such as cancer should pay particular attention to back pain.
Epidemiology of LBP
Back pain affects approximately 700m people worldwide. A 2011 report by the US Institute of Medicine, estimates that 100m Americans are living with chronic back pain, which is more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined. This represents a vast market for therapies that include surgery and the prescription of opioids. Estimates of the prevalence of LBP vary significantly between studies. There is no convincing evidence that age affects the prevalence of back pain, and published data do not distinguish between LBP that persists for more than, or less than, a year. Each year LBP affects some 33% of UK adults, and around 20% of these - about 2.8m - will consult their GP. One year after a first episode of back pain, 62% of people still experience pain, and 16% of those initially unable to work are not working after 1 year. Typically in about 60% of cases pain and disability improve rapidly during the first month after onset.
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- The coronavirus CoVID-19 has created the greatest health-cum-economic-cum-societal crisis in history and put unprecedented pressure on overstretched and unprepared healthcare systems
- Before the coronavirus outbreak, primary care in England already was in crisis, fuelled by an aging population, a large and increasing demand for its services and a shrinking supply of health professionals
- In 2019, before the outbreak, 75% of primary care doctors (GPs) across 540 clinics in England were over the age of 55 and nearing retirement and a large percentage of newly trained GPs were seeking employment abroad
- Patients who could not get GP appointments used A&E departments as convenient drop-in clinics for minor ailments, which significantly increased healthcare costs and burden
- For decades successive UK governments have tried in vain to transform the nation’s primary care services predicated upon face-to-face patient-doctor consultations
- Several well-funded long-term national plans advocated increased digitization of some routine primary care services
- But before the coronavirus outbreak only 1% of all primary care consultations were online
- What these national plans could not achieve in decades appears to have been achieved in days by the UK’s NHS’s response to the coronavirus outbreak
- Today, millions of patients in England are having face-to-face appointments with their GPs replaced by telephone or video consultations
- Could CoVID-19 transform the UK’s traditional primary care model?
Introduction
The UK’s National Health Service’s (NHS) response to the coronavirus CoVID-19 outbreak might improve the nation’s crisis ridden primary care service. This became evident in March 2020, when the UK government ordered all citizens except key workers to stay at home. At the same time, NHS England announced its ‘battle plan’ for CoVID-19, which recommended that England’s 7,000 primary care clinics start conducting as many remote consultations as soon as possible. In a matter of days, millions of patients had face-to-face appointments with their GP replaced by telephone or video consultations. If this shift to online consultations becomes permanent then the NHS’s response to the coronavirus would have achieved in days what well-funded national healthcare plans, such as the NHS Digital First Primary Care drive, could not achieve in decades.
Future healthcare is digital
For years, the benefits of online doctor-patient consultations have been advocated by Devi Shetty, a world-renowned heart surgeon and founder and chairman of Narayana Health, one India’s largest hospital groups. According to Shetty, “The next biggest thing in healthcare is not going to be a ‘magic’ pill, a faster scanner or a new operation but information technology (IT). IT will dramatically change the way a health professional will interact with a patient. Every step of patient care will be informed by a protocol embedded in a smartphone. This will make healthcare safer for the patient and remove a lot of traditional dace-to-face healthcare activities and shift healthcare away from the clinic and into the home. Doctors and patients don't need to be together; they could be in their respective homes and effective consultations could take place online.” (see video below)
The next ‘big thing’ in healthcare
The coronavirus CoVID-19
In this Commentary
UK’s primary care crisis
Changing and aging population
Shrinking supply of GPs
Failing national initiatives to improve primary care
The UK’s NHS
National plans to improve the NHS
NHS long term plans and private online healthcare solution companies have delivered little change
The plan emphasises the importance of developing digital services, and recommends that within five years, all patients should be able to access GP consultations via a telephone or online. This goal is supported by NHS Digital, which is the national information and technology partner to the UK’s health and social care system. Its mission is to harness the power of information and technology to improve healthcare. Over the past decade there has been an increasing number of innovative online private healthcare solutions companies entering the market. (see below). Notwithstanding, these and the NHS’s well-funded national plans, have failed to dent the primary care crisis by slowing the vast and escalating demand for healthcare and reversing the shrinking supply of healthcare professionals. So, for the past two decades at least, the NHS has tended to operate on the cusp of a crisis.
The death of distance
A doctor only needs to touch a patient if s/he is going to operate on that patient
Innovative online healthcare solution enterprises
Technologically heavy and strategically light
A Chinese example
Takeaways
The coronavirus CoVID-19
In December 2019, initial reports of a new coronavirus - CoVID-19 - emerged when patients from Wuhan, the sprawling capital city of China’s Hubei province, which has a population of some 11m, presented with pneumonia of unknown origin. By December 2019 the virus had spread to other countries and on 11th March 2020, the World Health Organization characterised the outbreak as a pandemic. CoVID-19 is an illness caused by a member of the coronavirus family that has never been encountered before but is believed to come from animals.There have been other coronaviruses. For example, severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome (Mers) are both caused by coronaviruses that came from animals. In 2002, Sars spread virtually unchecked to 37 countries, causing global panic, infecting more than 8,000 people and killing about 800, but it soon ran itself out. Mers first emerged in 2012, cases of which have been occurring sporadically since. Mers appears to be less easily passed from human to human, but has greater lethality, killing 35% of about 2,500 people who were infected. CoVID-19 is different to Sars and Mers in that the spectrum of disease is broader, with around 80% of cases leading to a mild infection. There may also be many people carrying the disease and displaying no symptoms, making it even harder to control. CoVID-19 affects your lungs and airways and can cause pneumonia. So, people with an inflammatory lung disease that causes obstructed airflow from the lungs, such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), are particularly vulnerable; as are people with weak immune systems, which make them susceptible to infections that might be more severe or harder to treat. In January 2020, China’s national health commission confirmed human-to-human transmission of CoVID-19, and there have been such transmissions in countries throughout the world. Those who have fallen ill are reported to suffer a general feeling of being unwell, fever, dry cough, tiredness, breathing difficulties and a loss of taste and smell. In roughly 14% of cases the virus causes severe disease, including pneumonia and shortness of breath. In about 5% of patients it is critical, leading to respiratory failure, septic shock and multiple organ failure. As this is viral pneumonia, antibiotics are of no use. The antiviral drugs we have against flu will not work. Recovery depends on the strength of your immune system. Many of those who have died were already in poor health. Initially, scientists were challenged to accurately assess how dangerous CoVID-19 was because there were inadequate data. A challenge to collecting data was because of a shortage of tests and also because people who had contracted the coronavirus were emitting, or “shedding,” infectious viruses early in the progression of the illness; sometimes before they develop symptoms.
The 1918 Spanish Influenza remains the most devastating virus in modern history. The disease swept around the globe and is estimated to have caused between 50m and 100m deaths. A cousin of the same virus was also behind the 2009 swine flu outbreak, thought to have killed as many as 0.58m. Other major viral outbreaks include the Asian flu in 1957, which led to roughly 2m deaths and the Hong Kong flu, which killed 1m people 11 years later.
The 1918 Spanish Influenza remains the most devastating virus in modern history. The disease swept around the globe and is estimated to have caused between 50m and 100m deaths. A cousin of the same virus was also behind the 2009 swine flu outbreak, thought to have killed as many as 0.58m. Other major viral outbreaks include the Asian flu in 1957, which led to roughly 2m deaths and the Hong Kong flu, which killed 1m people 11 years later.
In this Commentary
This Commentary is produced by HealthPad, which is an online health solutions company. (see below). We begin the Commentary by briefly describing the underlying reasons for the UK’s primary care crisis, which include: (i) the changing and aging population and the consequent increased demand for healthcare, (ii) the shrinking supply of health professionals, and (iii) failing national initiatives to improve the provision of primary care. We then draw attention to some well funded national plans, whose intentions have been to harness the power of information and digital strategies to reform and improve primary care services in England. We also cite research, which suggests that these plans have failed. The Commentary briefly describes a number of innovative online healthcare solution companies, (HealthPad is one). The majority of these are private initiatives, which have taken advantage of the UK’s high smartphone penetration rates and advanced wireless networks to enter the UK’s healthcare market with an intention to transform the sector. Notwithstanding, to-date the overall impact of these companies has been marginal, due in part, to the general resistance of private enterprises playing a significant role in England’s public NHS, which offers free healthcare to all citizens at the point of care. However, they represent a nascent UK online healthcare solutions market, which is well positioned to benefit from the nation’s response to the coronavirus outbreak, which has forced more primary care services to be delivered online. To increase their footprint these companies, which are largely driven by technology, will need to become more strategic and consolidate. And this will take time. We conclude the Commentary by looking to China and WeDoctor to understand the potential that online services can make to the delivery of healthcare in England. WeDoctor is a Chinese mobile app launched in 2010 to help patients book doctor appointments. Over the past decade it has added more functions to help unclog China’s fragmented and bureaucratic healthcare system and has become a US$5.5bn healthcare company, which connects some 210m registered users with 360,000 doctors.
UK’s primary care crisis
There are three drivers to the UK’s primary care crisis: (i) the changing and aging population, which increases the demand for healthcare, (ii) the shrinking supply of healthcare professionals to a point where GP workloads are becoming unsafe, and (iii) failing national initiatives to improve the provision of primary care. Let us briefly describe these.
Changing and aging population
The UK’s population is changing and aging, which is fuelled by improvements in life expectancy and a decrease in fertility. According to the UK’s Office of National Statistics, in 2016, there were 12m UK residents aged 65 years and over, representing 18% of the total population. 25 years before, in 1991, there were 9m, accounting for 16% of the population. By 2040, it is projected that there will be an additional 8m people aged 65 years and over in the UK: a population roughly the size of present-day London, which will account for 25% of the total population.
A report by Deloitte, a consultancy, suggests that as people age so their propensity for illness increases and more than a quarter of the UK’s population of some 66m have long-term chronic illnesses. This places a significant extra burden on the nation’s overstretched primary care services by utilizing about half of all GP appointments. Deloitte’s analysis is supported by a British Medical Association’s 2019 GP Patient Survey, which found that GP clinics are now caring for 0.72m more patients than they were in 2018. Findings of a 2016 report by the UK’s Royal College of General Practitioners (RGCP), suggest that GPs see 1.3m patients a day and do more than 370m consultations annually: 60m more than in 2010. A research study on GP productivity carried out by the King’s Fund and also published in 2016, suggested that between 2010 and 2015 the total number of telephone consultations increased by 15%, but still only accounted for 1% of all patient-doctor consultations.
Shrinking supply of GPs
As the UK’s population has grown and aged and the consequent demand for healthcare has increased, so there has been a sustained fall in the number of GPs. This dynamic is described in a Nuffield Trust report published in May 2019, which confirms the findings of a joint report from the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the Health Foundation for the NHS Confederation, which concluded that, “The fall in GPs per person reflects insufficient numbers previously being trained and going on to join NHS England, failure to recruit enough from abroad and more GPs leaving for early retirement”. As to the future, a 2019 report by three leading think tanks - the Nuffield Trust, the Health Foundation and the King's Fund - predicts that GP shortages in England will almost triple to 7,000 by 2024. According to NHS Statistics, Facts and Figures, currently there are just over 42,000 GPs working in England, down by nearly 1,500 since 2016.
Failure to stop or slow these trends means today, primary care services in England struggle with staff shortages and a rising demand for care. A 2019 Pulse Magazine survey found that GPs in England are seeing more patients than is safe. A probe undertaken by The Times in 2019 suggested that the national shortage of GPs has left some surgeries with one permanent doctor caring for as many as 11,000 patients and one in 10 GPs are seeing up to 60 patients a day, double the number considered safe.
GPs across the UK work an average 11-hour day. In that time, they typically see patients for 8 hours and spend the other 3 on administrative tasks such as checking test results and reading letters sent by hospitals. A 2019 British Medical Association survey found that more than 80% of GPs said the pressure to attend to multiple tasks at once meant they were unable to guarantee safe care, while 91% said excessive workload was the main reason the NHS was struggling to recruit enough staff. The situation has resulted in patients having to wait longer - up to three weeks - for a GP consultation. It seems reasonable to suggest that GPs with too many patients and using traditional face-to-face delivery methods will fail in their duty of care, which obliges them to inform patients about their health and reach shared clinical decisions about treatments. This requires that patients understand their condition/s and are well informed. In many cases, a 10-minute face-to-face GP consultation might not be the best way to achieve this.
Failing national initiatives to improve primary care
Subsequent UK governments have struggled to reduce the primary care crisis with well funded national plans. In 2019, the British Medical Journal published findings of a survey to report UK GPs’ views and experience of national healthcare initiatives introduced in England to address the workforce crisis in general practice. The survey was conducted in the same region as a similar survey undertaken in 2014. This allows for a comparative analysis to see how GPs’ views have changed over time. Findings confirm that primary care in England remains in crisis and suggest that numerous national initiatives to improve general practice are perceived by GPs as, “reactive in approach”. To reduce the primary care crisis, respondents suggested, “more GPs and better education of the public".
The UK’s NHS
Healthcare in the UK is mainly provided by the National Health Service (NHS), which is a vast public institution funded largely from general taxation to the tune of some £134bn (US$161bn) a year. Created in 1948, the NHS provides free health services at the point of care for everyone living in the UK and has become the largest single payer health system in the world, and the biggest employer in the UK with 1.2m full time equivalent (FTE) workers, which is the fifth-largest workforce in the world. NHS England is a vast bureaucratic and fragmented organisation, which has proven difficult to change. Private provision of NHS services has always been controversial, even though some services, such as dentistry, optical care and pharmacy, have been provided by the private sector to the NHS for decades and most GP practices are private partnerships. It is challenging to determine how much the NHS spends each year on the private sector because central bodies do not hold detailed information on individual contracts with service providers, especially where these contracts may cover relatively small amounts of activity and spending. Notwithstanding, estimates suggest the share of the NHS’s total revenue budget that is spent on private providers is about 7.3%.
National plans to improve the NHS
The planning and authorising of NHS services is the responsibility of regional Clinical Commissioning Groups (CCGs). Although CCGs are constantly changing because of mergers, as of 2019, there were 191 CCGs in England supporting about 7,000 primary care clinics, some 42,000 GPs and about 15,800 FTE nurses who work in GP clinics, and 1,257 hospitals, which include NHS Trust-managed hospitals and private hospitals that provide services to the NHS. In total, the NHS employs around 150,000 doctors and over 320,000 nurses and midwives.
Successive UK governments have been aware of the impact of technological advances, changing healthcare needs and societal developments on healthcare and have introduced a succession of well-funded national plans to change and improve the NHS. For example, in June 2018, the UK’s Prime Minister announced a new five-year funding settlement for the NHS that amounted to an extra £20.5bn (US$25.2bn) between 2019 and 2024, which represents a 3.4% real average annual increase.
NHS long term plan to transform primary careTo unlock the funding, national bodies were asked to develop a long-term plan to help the NHS cut costs and improve services. The suggested plan articulated the need to integrate care in order to meet the needs of a changing population and was in line with the Forward View, a planning document published in 2014 and the General practice forward view,which was first published in 2016 and updated in subsequent years. The long-term plan committed the government to an extra £2.4bn (US$3bn) a year to speed up the transformation of primary care and suggested GP clinics join together to form networks typically covering 30,000 to 50,000 patients and provide them with multidisciplinary integrated care. The plan also suggested ‘significant changes’ in the existing performance management and payment of NHS GPs [the Quality and Outcomes Framework (QOF)] in order to encourage more personalised care.
NHS long term plans and private online healthcare solution companies have delivered little change
Three of five principal objectives of the latest NHS long term plan are to: (i) “give people more control over their own health and the care they receive”; (ii) “increase the contribution to tackling some of the most significant causes of ill health, including new action to help people stop smoking, overcome drinking problems and avoid Type 2 diabetes”, and (iii) “provide more convenient access to services and health information for patients”.
The plan emphasises the importance of developing digital services, and recommends that within five years, all patients should be able to access GP consultations via a telephone or online. This goal is supported by NHS Digital, which is the national information and technology partner to the UK’s health and social care system. Its mission is to harness the power of information and technology to improve healthcare. Over the past decade there has been an increasing number of innovative online private healthcare solutions companies entering the market. (see below). Notwithstanding, these and the NHS’s well-funded national plans, have failed to dent the primary care crisis by slowing the vast and escalating demand for healthcare and reversing the shrinking supply of healthcare professionals. So, for the past two decades at least, the NHS has tended to operate on the cusp of a crisis.
According to Deloitte, the UK has more than 90% smartphone penetration. The main driver of high smartphone adoption rates is the take-up among older age groups. By 2023 smartphone ownership among 55-to-75-year-olds will reach 85% in the UK, and the difference in smartphone penetration by age will disappear. Further, the UK’s smartphone market has seen a greater variety of choice of models and the introduction of faster and more reliable wireless networks. This has benefited the online private healthcare solution companies, which have entered the UK market to provide varying degrees of qualified online healthcare information, consultations, networking opportunities, triage and Q&A. According to Shetty, “A doctor only needs to touch a patient if s/he is going to operate on that patient. If a doctor doesn’t need to operate, a doctor-patient consultation can take place remotely. For a patient-doctor communication distance doesn’t matter.” (see video below)
A doctor only needs to touch a patient if s/he is going to operate on that patient
Innovative online healthcare solution enterprises
The new online healthcare solution enterprises are a combination of private, public and charitable initiatives, which are well positioned to contribute to the transformation of the UK’s traditional primary care model and include: Babylon Health, which provides remote consultations with doctors and healthcare professionals via text and video; BioBeats, a workplace wellbeing platform designed to empower and improve mental health; Docly, a digital messaging healthcare service, which is a spin-off of Min Doktor; Doctorlink, which partners with payers, healthcare professionals and pharmacists to provide a 24-7 platform for NHS patients to assess symptoms; DrDoctor, a patient engagement platform, which enables patients to book, change and cancel their appointments; EggPlant, a software testing and monitoring company, which helps to streamline patient activities; Dr Fox, an online primary care clinic and pharmacy service; Gogodoc, an online GP video consultation service with possible follow-up home visits; Healthcare Communications UK, which provides appointment management software and patient experience surveys; HealthPad, an online platform that manages and distributes healthcare video information between health providers and patients in order to improve outcomes and cut costs, and has accrued a proprietary content library of over 6,000 short videos contributed by leading clinicians that address peoples FAQs across some 30 therapeutic pathways, (HealthPad is the publisher of this Commentary). HealthTalksOnline, an events and community portal for health; HealthUnlocked, a social networking service that offers peer support to help people manage their health; Healum provides healthcare professionals with a software, which enables them to support and motivate their patients to better manage their conditions; LIVI, provides GP video consultations; Medshr, a platform for medical professionals to discover, discuss and share clinical cases and medical images; Microtest Health, a health informatics company that provides practice management systems for NHS GP surgeries. MSKnote Limited creates clinical applications for healthcare professionals and patients with a focus on musculoskeletal conditions; MyWay Digital Health provides advice and solutions to help patients better manage diabetes; NHS.uk/conditions provides online text-based information and advice about medical conditions; NHS 111, a free-to-call medical helpline; the Now Healthcare Group, a GP video consultation platform and tele-pharmacy; Patient Access, which started by enabling patients to book GP appointments online and order repeat prescriptions and has evolved to allow patients to connect with their GPs remotely and access their medical records online; Patientinfo provides patients and health professionals with online health information. PatientAccess and Patientinfo are subsidiaries of EMIS Health, a leading supplier of software used by NHS England; Patients Know Best, a social enterprise, which provides patients with access to their medical records and information about treatments; PatientsLikeMe, an online service that helps patients find people with similar health conditions in order to take actions that are expected to improve outcomes; Push Doctor, an online video consultation service; SaySo Medical is a digital communications agency, which connects people in order to improve their health; SystmOne, a centrally hosted computer system that provides primary care professionals with electronic patient health records in real time at the point of care; uMotif, a platform that captures electronic patient-reported outcomes data across a range of conditions and works with pharmaceutical companies to measure patient’s health, outcomes and experience; Unmind, a workplace mental health platform designed to empower organisations and employees to improve their mental wellbeing; Visiba Care, a digital solutions company, which provides communication and administration software for healthcare practices; VisionHealth provides NHS primary care professionals with software solutions; VisualDX provides clinical decision support systems to enhance diagnoses and therapeutic decisions in order to improve patient safety; WebMD, an online publisher of healthcare news and information, and Zava, an online GP and pharmacy service.
Technologically heavy and strategically light
Despite a significant number of online healthcare solution enterprises entering the market and the fact that some provide services to millions of people in the UK, this market segment is in its infancy and fragmented. All the initiatives mentioned above have been advantaged by the NHS’s response to the coronavirus outbreak. Notwithstanding, to permanently increase their footprint and significantly influence primary care in England, barriers to private enterprises and to online services will need to be reduced; and private companies in this segment will need to act more strategically and consolidate.
Most of these online healthcare service providers are technologically heavy and strategically light. For private companies in this market to grow and increase their influence on the NHS they will need to increase their focus on profitability and scale, which will require them to become more strategic and develop merger-integration skills. To become a dominant player, a company will have to successfully consolidate. Speed and merger competence are paramount. Companies that capture critical ground early and move up the consolidation curve the fastest will be successful. Enterprises that are slow to consolidate will become acquisition targets and disappear. Companies that stay out of the consolidation contest altogether will not survive.
A Chinese example
History has shown that many short-term emergency measures have a tendency to become permanent fixtures. Thus, the UK’s response to the coronavirus CoVID-19 outbreak might permanently reduce the barriers to moving routine primary care tasks to innovative private online enterprises.
In an attempt to fully appreciate the potential of increasing online primary healthcare services in England, consider WeDoctor, a Chinese mobile app launched in 2010 by artificial intelligence expert Jerry Liao. Originally called Guahao (Mandarin for “booking”), WeDoctor started as a simple booking platform that made it easier for patients to make appointments with doctors. From these humble beginnings WeDoctor grew by adding extra functions such as reminders for regular medical checks, screening, prescriptions and online diagnoses and consultations. This helped to unclog China’s fragmented and bureaucratic healthcare system and made quality healthcare more accessible to the average person.
WeDoctor secured backing from Tencent Holdings, a Chinese multinational conglomerate, Sequoia Capital, the Goldman Sachs Group and the insurer AIA Group. In 2018, the company raised US$0.5bn in a private financing round at a valuation of US$5.5bn. Today, WeDoctor has more than 210m registered users mainly in China for its online appointment booking, prescription and diagnosis services and is linked to about 3,200 hospitals and 360,000 doctors. In March 2020, at the height of the CoVID-19 pandemic, it was reported that, in the latter half of 2020, WeDoctor intends to raise HK$1bn in an IPO on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange at a valuation of HK$10bn.
Although NHS England is much smaller than China’s healthcare provision, it is similarly fragmented and bureaucratic. The UK online solutions enterprises described in this Commentary have significant potential simply by helping to reduce GPs large and increasing burden of administration while increasing the connectivity between patients and GPs. This will help GPs to concentrate on what they have been trained to do and improve healthcare for people in most need.
Takeaways
Over the past two decades, legacy primary care systems and attitudes in the UK have slowed the uptake of online healthcare solutions. Notwithstanding, the NHS’s response to the coronavirus CoVID-19 outbreak might prove to have helped to transform the UK’s traditional face-to-face primary care model by making GPs deliver some of their services online. In a recent interview with the New York Times, Dr Bruce Aylward, Assistant Director-General of the World Health Organization, stressed how the Chinese had responded to the coronavirus outbreak by significantly increasing the amount of medical care the nation provides online. In light of the discussion in this Commentary, be minded that in Mandarin the word “crisis” is denoted by two characters: 危机, one means ‘disaster’ and the other means ‘opportunity’.
#coronavirus #coVID-19 #NHSEngland #NHS #pandemic #primarycarecrisis #ChinaWeDoctor #WeDoctor #DigitalHealthcare
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