Dr Prathap C Reddy, chairman, Apollo Hospitals Group, feels the challenge is to work closely with individuals and empower them to look after themselves. In an interview with Govindraj Ethiraj, Editor-in-Chief, Bloomberg UTV, Reddy feels the next decade would be full of interesting challenges...

How would you rate the decade that has gone by from the health and healthcare point of view.. and the second, of course, is what has Apollo done in that period....

Reddy: It makes us proud, as an Indian, to have removed the stigma on healthcare...we at Apollo are proud to be known as the pioneers to have brought quality healthcare to the country...India today is not just a choice but a definite option for healthcare.

We have done one of the largest number of surgeries in the world, 84,000 heart surgeries...it is not the number that is impressive...our positive outcome is 99%, which has not been achieved or achieved by very few hospitals across the world...

I think it was a great decade for healthcare in India. Today, we are able to give the best results at affordable prices...I think Apollo has pioneered the total healthcare delivery system...today, people are coming to India for treatment from across the world...30% of our speciality treatment is for overseas patients.

Is it because of the capacity we have added or is it because of skills that we have seen coming back?

Reddy: Let me speak from Apollo's angle...we have clinical excellence and the best doctors and the best technology...recently, we bought cyber knife for the management of cancer...John Adler, who invented it from Stanford, said: Dr Reddy, you have a model of cyber knife I don’t have at Stanford...I think we have the best technology.

Something else that is very close to our culture is care, commitment and compassion...importantly, we are doing all this at an affordable cost...

What, in your mind, has been the most radical strategy you have adopted either as Apollo or as a player in the healthcare space that have worked and that have not worked?

Reddy: I think our goal was - anyone who trusts in Apollo should get the best care...and to be able to give this, we have to innovate.

This is what makes me feel very happy - we have brought this level of care and given them benefits by pure innovation. For example, when we started Apollo in 1983, the bypass heart surgery for a patient was $3,000...after 27 years, we have improved from 97% to 99% success rate, and our charge for the ordinary patients is still $3,000... I think that's the thing that makes the 62,000 Apollo family members very proud...

In the coming decade, do you see question marks on the business case for healthcare expansion, particularly by organised players like you?

Reddy: The demand-supply gap is so huge that we need to build 100,000 beds over the next 10 years. We need to develop human resources...we need to double the number of our doctors, triple the number of nurses, quadruple our para-medics... this is what I am telling the government. The sector can create 2.5 million direct jobs every year for the next two decades.

How is Apollo going to be different in the coming decade?

 Reddy: We have treated 18 million patients, which is equivalent to two New Yorks...we will continue and we will treat many more...and establish many more hospitals...

What we have done is bringing in trust and wellness, and this is going to be the bigger thing that we are going to do this decade...to bring this awareness in people, have early detection and stop them from getting ailments...

I think in research what we would like to see is to see innovation in a manner that whatever we are able to tackle now can we tackle it better....

3,000 years of Indian healthcare...we need not rediscover a lot of things but we must see what are the best things we can capture and bring them back to today's medicine...

We did not have much of clinical research before but now we have a major division headed by some eminent scientists...

So, what's the Apollo motto going to be - work with patients or work with people before they become patients because you are also into insurance and so on...

Reddy: I am asking all doctors to work with us, and see that we bring awareness among people...remove several risk factors and give them an additional 30-40 years so that they are available for their family and to the nation... that is our first thrust. Second is to innovate and get the best results....

Are you a recent convert to traditional medicine?

Reddy: No... I come from a village...I knew a physician who looked after people, and solutions were always there. I think what we are now realising is that whatever we are doing is great but there is something which is outstanding... and that is bringing the best of the worlds together...

So, in the next decade, how will you treat the next 100 million people?

Reddy: If I have to answer in one word - I want to empower individuals to look after themselves. Today, they are willing to look after their two-wheelers and/or four-wheelers but they are not even insuring themselves...

I think this is what we would like to do - to bring and to work closely with individuals...that's how I have Apollo Munich health insurance... there again, our thrust is yes, we promise to pay for all your sickness but we want you to stay well,  which is good for you and good for me...