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Techmed Healthcare: Pioneering an Innovative Hospital Lab Management Paradigm

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Dr. Raja Ramanan,Chairman & Managing Director

Dr. Raja Ramanan

Chairman & Managing Director

It’s a hopeful omen that Indian medical diagnostic industry is silently transforming into the ‘preventive healthcare’ epoch, propelling hospitals to invest heavily on diagnostic technologies & tools. But when technology wins the race, manpower gest on to the back foot, as the knowledge & skill gap in labs remains unsolved. The rationale behind the recent Supreme Court judgment, which states that a Laboratory Report can be countersigned only by a registered medical practitioner with a postgraduate qualification in pathology, is no different.

Thus, when it comes to the business end, despite the heavy investments, hospitals fail to meet even the ROI, making the investigation services further costly as they are run by technicians. For instance, if a latest equipment enables 800 parameters and technician has expertise only in 50 among them, the hospital/lab’s capability ironically reduces to the technician’s capability. Imagine the depth of loss.

India’s first-of-its-kind Hospital Lab Management Company, Chennai-based Techmed Healthcare has launched into this crater by deploying its high-tech NABL accredited (ISO 15189:2012 standards) labs inside several hospitals across the country to offer end-to-end investigations at the most affordable cost using the most technologically advanced equipment. Marshaled by the doctor duo – Dr. Raja Ramanan (Chairman & Managing Director) & Dr. Wasim Mohideen (Director), Techmed’s panel of reputed medical professionals add priceless value to the reports by reviewing and digitally signing them round the clock. While the entire healthcare realm is subjected to today’s highly dynamic technology landscape where even doctors sweat keeping abreast of the pace, this fleet of doctors and technicians are continuously trained on latest technology interventions in the industry by its own internal business operations team on a daily basis to solve the wide-open knowledge & authenticity gap in the hospital-labs. Well, it gets way better owing to the company’s unique approach & business model.

An Innovative Secret Sauce
Starting right from on-boarding a Hospital, Techmed’s unique B2B2C business model wholly revolves around the NABL level of quality, standardized operating procedures, and impeccable turn-around time(TAT). “It’s both fortunate and unfortunate that there is no other business in the world which has a B2B2C model in laboratory management, wherein the end-customer is directly connected to us. Indeed, we are also presenting a paper at Harvard on this unique model,” proclaims Dr. Raja. Well, he is referring to quite an interesting business model!

Once the partnership is initiated, Techmed without further ado switches the ‘Sherlock Holmes’ mode on to delve deep into the customers’ laboratory infrastructure (majorly mid-sized hospitals), which ignite the spark for a comprehensive auditing. With all its endeavors projected towards improving the scope of laboratory and increasing the hospital’s revenue in-turn, the company meets the hospital’s board with no speculations, but an intricate report & optimization blueprint encompassing the feasibility,
thorough study over the hospital’s laboratory data (at least of last six months), and audit report of their existing equipment (if any). “Often, the immediate response is that we are getting our hands on their money, but the audit reports act as an eye opener. In fact, we have doubled the revenue of all our partners in a year’s time - not only for hospitals, but even for our vendors,” asserts Dr. Wasim.

b>"Starting right from on-boarding a Hospital, Techmed’s unique B2B2C business model wholly revolves around the NABL level of quality, standardized operating procedures, and impeccable TAT"

When provided with space and basic amenities, Techmed does the rest – starting right from investing in equipment & manpower to maintenance, and fully-responsible (including legal liability) total laboratory management – and shares the revenue with hospitals. It even offers annual maintenance contract (AMC) for the existing equipment if it’s less than five years old. As it starts from the scratch, Techmed trains and elevates the technical cadre to NABL standards, and periodically promotes them in the hierarchy through its signature program 'SEED' (Skill Enhancement, Enrichment & Development).

Techmed advances through automating the lab with cutting-edge technologies, and incorporating the lab in its centralized ERP system, which powers the company to steer the lab through standardized operating procedures intact. “We possess a dedicated team that ceaselessly research on latest equipment and reagents, choose the best viable equipment from renowned companies, and facilitate training on the latest inclusions before deploying them in the hospitals,” asserts Mohana Pillai, AVP - HR, BO& Legal Affairs, Techmed Healthcare.

Having set the project on wheels, this unique contender even gets into its instructor boots, more like a medical representative, in order to empower and acquaint the fleet of medical professionals & even the patients with the advent of lab-technologies and its real costs (which are quite affordable than the myth). Additionally, it provides each of the stakeholders with discrete toll-free customer care numbers. When this detailed approach amalgamates with its awareness campaigns that include various educational sessions and free medical camps, it significantly aids in people leveraging the technology more and thus augmenting the volume.

Saving Lives with Matchless TAT
On the flip side, retail labs often make an attractive proposition to fill this technology need, which makes hospitals outsource the high-end tests to laboratories with remarkable investments on equipment & technologies. Eventually at the receiving end, hospitals are thrown into drastic predicaments ranging from overcrowding & prolonged length of stay in emergency departments to even grievous medical negligence lawsuits. While offering comprehensive high-end investigations, Techmed ascertains that all the possible reports (of previous day) are primed before the '9:00AM' morning rounds in the hospitals! The rationale behind this strictly time-bound approach is no rocket science, but doctors, especially the specialists & visiting consultants, take most of the salient clinical decisions during their morning rounds.

“We are not referring to the largest corporate hospitals in our country, but the multitude of mid-sized hospitals, which accommodate the major wedge of patients and wherein most of the specialists are scheduled visitors. Hence, if the report is not ready on time, the patient has to wait unwantedly till the next visit. We eradicate this time delay to often a lifesaving extent,” adjoins Dr. Raja.
This is exactly why even the large hospitals and labs today bank on Techmed.

Empowering the CompleteEcosystem
Started its journey from small hospitals in Chennai, Techmed currently caters to 80+ hospitals and even receives proposals from lately built healthcare centers. “Presently we cater across a wide spectrum, ranging from single-doctor clinics to 700 bedded hospitals, and even three medical colleges,” divulges Dr. Masood Ikram, AVP - Strategy & Operations. Having customized its offerings respective of the miscellany in the spectrum and to match the sophisticated international markets like Nigeria and Sri Lanka, where the company has recently started its operations, Techmed today envisions more diversification into Tiers-2 & 3 cities with an aim to organize the unorganized market. Apart from @Home Wellness programs, it has commenced several greenfield projects in the recent times projected towards total empowerment.

" Presently we cater across a wide spectrum, ranging from single-doctor clinics to 700 bedded hospitals, and even three medical colleges"

In Odisha, Techmed has launched its new model, 'NIDAAN', in coordination with the state government and all other stakeholders to enable services at a nominal price. Having reserved the help from local sources for sample collection, it caters across all the 32 districts and even rural areas in the state! This is a hopeful omen as Techmed explores the mass market by empowering them, not just holding the share.

Man-Less Lab & More in the Making
“Over the past decade, we have been growing at a pace of 30 percent CAGR with three investment rounds completed. We are all set to raise our next round of funding, which will be earmarked to R&D, leveraging futuristic technologies, and geographical expansion to regions like Middle East and South America,” promulgates C. R. Bharath, Head - Finance & Accounts. Techmed looks forward to invest predominantly in technologies like Complete Automation, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Analytics, and Tele-Pathology.

It envisions launching a man-less lab which will produce reports with nearly zero error, whereas AI will be used for a much bigger purpose - to build a database of medical percentile and give insights to doctors based on which area to focus on when investigation proves a symptom as well as patients to mitigate their anxiety. Through Tele-Pathology, which will upload medical reports in Techmed’s platform in the universal HL10 format and helps people in gathering a second opinion from reputed doctors across the world, Techmed envisions further building-on the trust factor in end-customers.

Key Management:
Dr. Raja Ramanan, Chairman & Managing Director
A highly experienced general surgeon, Dr. Raja has been the think-tank behind this business concept. He gives his heart & soul to a job that he takes-up and makes sure that it’s done in the rightest manner possible. He is also an avid cricketer.

Dr. Wasim Mohideen, Director
As a director on the board, Dr. Wasim oversees branding, marketing and finance. A well-known foodie among his friends, Dr. Wasim also owns a full-fledged foodie blog – www.chennaifoody.com

Offices: Headquarter in Chennai; Regional Offices in Bangalore & Bhubaneshwar
Offering: First-of-its-kind Hospital Lab Management