Case on Aravind Eye Care Essay Example

the sum of oculus surgeries than their opposite numbers in the United States and yet holding fewer complication rates than wellness systems in developed states. But what is genuinely amazing about Aravind is that about half of the processs it conducts every twelvemonth are practically free. For many old ages. India’s Aravind Eye Care System has restored the sight of 1000000s. even those who can non afford it. The inquiry is how they manage such a apparently impossible effort.

About Aravind Eye Care

1976 Madurai. when Dr V. who had turned 58. had to retire from public service. he still wanted to transport on his mission of eliminating “preventable” sightlessness in India. Mortgaging his house and selling his family’s ownerships. he started a low 11-bed oculus clinic in the life room of his house and recruited his drawn-out household in fall ining his mission. Today. with over 3. 500 beds in 5 infirmaries across Tamilnadu. it is one of the largest oculus attention systems in the universe. The Aravind oculus infirmary has since expanded to go Aravind Eye Care System. which includes intervention installations. preparation schools. research centres and even production installations. All of which have been self-sufficient with 75 % net income borders. All the piece handling both paying and non-paying patients likewise with such high service degrees.

The inquiry was how was it even possible to make such surgeries for free and yet still do a net income. Advanced Approachs
High Quality. Low Cost ( Economies of Scale )
The invention challenge here is important – how would one transport out a high quality procedure of oculus surgery at low cost?

Dr V. searched for inspiration in other Fieldss

where the same challenge of transporting out activities consistently. reproducibly and to a high quality criterion – but at low cost –and found inspiration from the planetary fast nutrient concatenation of McDonalds. What fascinated him was how McDonald’s could develop people all over the universe to bring forth a merchandise that was delivered the same manner and have the repasts offered at a low cost. He wanted to present a mechanism of bringing of eyecare with the efficiency of McDonalds. And so this assembly line production system formed the footing for his quest to eliminate sightlessness.

Finding a Niche Market

Cataracts were the taking cause of preventable sightlessness in India. with Numberss up to 70 % of the entire population enduring from cataract sightlessness. While the infirmary did handle other optical jobs. there was a prevailing focal point on cataract intervention. as Dr. V saw it as the fastest agencies to doing an impact on the sightlessness job that plagued India. As such. it was the cataract process that became the posting kid for efficiency.

Smarter Use of Peoples

Eye sawboness who worked at Aravind had productiveness rates that were many times their opposite numbers in the developed states. Each sawbones would hold an norm of 2000 oculus surgeries a twelvemonth every bit compared to 150 such oculus surgeries done by an oculus sawbones in the United States. Much of it could be attributed to the “assembly” line system for surgery. Patients were processed and readied in batches. with qualified nurses making all the preparatory work. so that the sawboness could concentrate on what they did best. surgery. Each operating theater. at any clip. had 2 sawboness working on

two tabular arraies each. with each holding four qualified nurses helping them at any clip. .

These tabular arraies were placed on either side of the equipment. such that one time the sawbones was done with the process on 1. he and the equipment would pivot to the other tabular array. Leaving the qualified ocular helpers to escort the intervention patient to the recovery room and fix the following patient on the free tabular array. This assembly line construction ensured that the waiting times between surgeries were fundamentally zero. Beyond this. these sawboness develop their ain acquisition economic systems of graduated tables in footings of accomplishments. taking an norm of 10 mins for a cataract surgery as compared to 30 mins in the other infirmaries in India.

This item and concentrate on efficiency isn’t merely limited to the operating theater. Trained support staff. who are categorised by colorss harmonizing to their occupation Scopess. transport out all the everyday diagnostic processs. This leaves the opthalmologists to execute undertakings that required their opinion and medical background. Another illustration of their operational efficiency would be in how informations from patient visits are compiled on a day-to-day footing to calculate the figure of patients per twenty-four hours and expect the burden required on the staff.

Vertical Integration ( Scaling Up )

In India. the two most of import cost elements were forces and critical constituents in the surgery ( See Figure 1 ) . For the cataract surgeries. frequently it was the extremely efficient and good trained ophthamlmic nurses and the Inter-Ocular Lenses ( IOL ) that were to replace the foggy natural lenses. As such. as the infirmary began to spread out

it’s operations. there were jobs sourcing these two. As the infirmary grew. the needed base of skilled nurses were frequently non readily available in rural Southern India. As such. Aravind recruited campaigners from the rural small towns to undergo two old ages of preparation at Aravind before being hired full-time. Many of these campaigners had hardly passed high school and the option was frequently early matrimony. therefore stoping any chance of farther surveies or meaningful employment. Stigma and fright for immature unaccompanied misss to go to the metropolis frequently meant looking for employment was besides non culturally accepted in these small towns.

By enrolling from these small towns. preparation is freely given. along with lodging and a monthly stipend. This preparation empowers these immature adult females with farther cognition. assurance. accomplishments and money. Of which the money is placed in a bank history for them for future utilizations ( i. e. matrimony ) . The other issue was in the sourcing of the IOLs. IOLs were sold for about US $ 150 in the U. S. and in Europe. doing it prohibitively expensive for usage in rural India. In the 1980s. strong net incomes allowed these makers to donate some lenses to Aravind. However. as Aravind’s volumes grew. the contributions merely weren’t plenty to fit the addition in demand. For many. these IOLs were a agencies to recover their vision to the full and a return to their supports. IOL was cutting border at that clip. necessitating preciseness machining. quality control and a rigorous unfertile environment.

With aid from external protagonists. Aravind acquired the engineering required and set up Aurolab. a production installation under the way of

an independent trust. With the immense volumes of IOLs needed in India. the installation today produces extra quality lenses at the low-cost and profitable costs of US $ 6 ( at the exchange rates at the clip ) . doing it an alternate beginning of gross to farther back up the nucleus mission of eliminating sightlessness. This high quality and really low-cost merchandise made a planetary impact on the monetary values of IOLs. Aurolab subsequently expanded into doing other indispensable surgical constituents as good. such as suturas. oculus beads.

Hybrid Business Model ( Tiered Pricing )

Aravind serves any patient. regardless of whether the patient has the agencies to pay. Up to 70 % of the entire patients were treated for free. Majority of which were the huge Numberss of hapless who chiefly lived in the rural countries. the really segments that the infirmary was set up to turn to. Eye testing cantonments were used to make out to the hapless to convert them it truly was free for them. Those who are screened are so transported to the infirmary for their free surgeries in the “free section” of the base infirmaries. Yet the focal point on efficiency and cost-cutting. the chief inquiry was still on how the infirmary generates gross when up to 70 % of the patients are treated for free. Paying patients that make up the other 30 % are how Aravind generates it’s grosss and sustains its infirmaries.

This section of patients are indispensable to Aravind in two ways. Put merely. the income generated. which is still below the market monetary value for high quality oculus attention. from these paying patients subsidises the surgeries

for the free paying 1s. Furthermore. paying clients set high demands on quality attention and assist guarantee that the criterions for nonpaying clients are every bit high. How Aravind justifies the difference in pricing is in distinguishing the service offered to paying clients. The sawboness. operations. equipment are the same. but the the difference is in the degree of service and comfort given in pre-operation and post-operation services. Paying clients rest in beds alternatively of floor mats. have optional air conditioning and even semi-private bathrooms. Due to this two tiered pricing scheme adopted by Aravind. it has helped Aravind avoid the issue of funding for sustainability that frequently plagues NGOs.

Affordability vs Quality

With such inexpensive costs of fabrication and a two tiered service system. the common construct would be that quality is someway compromised every bit good. That was one of the chief misconceptions that they had to expose every bit good. In Aravind. oculus infirmaries. the sawboness are rotated between the free and paying patients on a set agenda. so that every physician treats both free and paying patients. at the oculus cantonments or in surgery at the base infirmaries. This ensures choice confidence in the signifier of market feedback from the paying patients. The other concern for physicians would be the efficiency and service degree from holding performed such high volumes of surgeries non-stop each twenty-four hours. One key metric for surgeries is that of infection rates or complications.

Yet despite the high volumes. complication rates were 4 in a 10. 000. compared to that in the United Kingdom ( 6 in 10000 ) . Aravind direction keeps a really close path on these prosodies.

both as a whole and for single sawboness as good. Each instance of complication is traced to the squad that performed and accounted for. Every cantonment patient is followed up on and around 90 % of the patients interviewed provide valuable feedback on post-surgery results and statistical informations. For their production arm. Aurolab was certified harmonizing to quality criterions ( such as ISO9002 ) . A testament to the quality and affordability would be how they went on to capture 10 % of the planetary market portion for lens production. Making high quality merchandises at an low-cost monetary value. Aurolab’s merchandises are now exported to more than 130 states worldwide. many of which are developing states.

Lessons for developed states

The instance of Aravind was an illustration of what was thought impossible. The chief lesson for developed states would be to rethink how a healthcare theoretical account can run efficaciously and expeditiously. The experience curve and High-Volume/Low-Cost theoretical account is readily applied to other industries in developed states. yet why should healthcare be any different? Low-cost health care is accomplishable and while I personally do hold that the local economic system can explicate some of the differences in costs. The willingness to dispute premises. doctors who are willing to happen cost-efficient solutions are some ways Aravind has made such a great effort possible.

Beyond that. for the medical physicians from developed states. the specialization and high volumes of surgery provide an priceless acquisition chance. Many of the instances that these physicians would merely hear about in their place state. were existent here. That is why Aravind has become the frontier for oculus attention. with physicians and pupils using

for a family in its infirmaries.

Beginnings:

Bill & A ; Melinda Gates Foundation. 2008 Gates Award for Global Health: Aravind. ( 2008 ) . Retrieved from hypertext transfer protocol: //www. gatesfoundation. org/gates-award-global-health/Pages/2008-aravind-eye-care-system. aspx

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Manikutty. Neharika Vohra of Indian Institute of Management. Ahmedabad. ( 2003 ) . Aravind Eye Care System: Giving them the most cherished gift ( R1 ) . Retrieved from hypertext transfer protocol: //wiki. brown. edu/confluence/download/attachments/9994241/Aravind+case. pdf? version=1

Center for Health Market Innovations. ( 25 October 2012 ) . Aravind Eye Care Systems. Retrieved from hypertext transfer protocol: //healthmarketinnovations. org/program/aravind-eye-care-system-aecs

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Aravind Eye Care System. ( Updated 2012 ) . Retrived from hypertext transfer protocol: //www. aravind. org/aboutus/

P. Krishnan. Infinite Vision – Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy. ( 2004 ) . Retrived