Sterling Hospitals inks JV for home healthcare services

Forms Asilia Home Healthcare in collaboration with IHHC and US-based Bayada

Gujarat’s largest chain of corporate hospitals, Girish Patel promoted Sterling Group of Hospitals is all set to launch home health services under the brand ‘Asilia Home Healthcare’, which would be a one-stop solution for all requirements related to medical treatment at home.

Sterling has formed a 70:30 joint venture with India Home Health Care (IHHC), a home healthcare provider down South, and US based Bayada, a leading clinical care and support services provider. Sterling would have a 70 per cent share in the joint venture while IHHC and Bayada would have the remaining share.

Sterling’s promoter Girish Patel said that this is a segment where the demand is easily more than the supply, and it is all about creating awareness and providing quality healthcare services. “The cost of rehabilitating or treating a patient at home is about 10-20 per cent of the cost of keeping a patient in any hospital,” Patel claimed.

Asilia would offer care for patients who have cancer, or have been released from the hospital after a surgery, care for the aged, children with special need and palliative care (specialised care for patients with serious illnesses). For starters, the services would start from Ahmedabad, and slowly spread to other parts of Gujarat, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

The home healthcare market is expected to cross $300 billion (Rs 19 lakh crore) globally by 2018, while in India the market size is pegged at Rs 12,600 crore.

In the US, Bayada handles 125,000 patients a year, and Mark Baiada, chairman, Bayada said that the market is huge in that country. With turnover of around $ 1 billion, his firm employs over 23,000 home healthcare professionals across 280 offices in 28 states of the US.