Study of Narayana Health: Process improvement in healthcare operations management

Abstract

Healthcare is one of the crucial services for a nation. In India, the supply-demand gap is extremely large due to various factors like insufficient infrastructure, underutilized resources, high out-of-pocket expenses etc. and majority of the population cannot afford even essential healthcare services. This study studies a different model of healthcare operations management and how the resources can be leveraged to provide affordable quality healthcare. Narayana Health, a multispecialty hospital in Bangalore, has improved its processes which in turn have resulted in low cost of operations, especially in the cardiac care. The processes adopted by Narayana Health have been studied in detail. The various methodologies adopted by NH for providing the quality healthcare at low cost have been analyzed. Also, the existing challenges for the healthcare industry in India have been analyzed. Using our qualitative analysis and based on the low cost model of NH, we provide key suggestions to improve the availability, affordability and accessibility of publicly funded healthcare services in India.