Apollo's modular approach reaches out to outpatients

Data from the different clinics will be linked to the central base

For brand Apollo, retail healthcare is its new mantra to advance. Starting 30 years ago with one multi-specialty hospital, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise now has a network of 54 hospitals (38 owned and 13 managed hospitals), 1,600 pharmacies and 60 diagnostic clinics. Cumulatively, more than 32 million people have been treated at various Apollo hospitals.

To grow further, the healthcare brand is expanding its reach to smaller towns and cities with cheaper hospitals and also various diagnostic and treatment centres. Just as a bank encourages its customers to transact online and at ATMs (for banks, it is to save costs in branch transactions), Apollo is attempting to hive off specialty diagnostics and treatments through various sub-brands.

"We want to leverage the brand value and enhance customer reach through investment in primary clinics, sugar detection and dialysis centres and dentalcare centres as separate verticals. Moving the outpatients to their own neighbourhoods is a good business strategy", Preetha Reddy, managing director and one of the four daughters of Pratap Reddy says. Apollo has opened around 20 dental clinics (Apollo White) along with Trivitorn, Apollo Dialysis centres, and recently forayed into cosmetic, asthma, cardiac and insulin pump clinics

The objective of fanning out with the help of multiple clinics is not just to reduce the load on its hospitals, but also to increase the brand recall of the mother brand.

To achieve this, data from all these outlets is wired into its central database, creating a seamless patient-history tracking for future reference. Also, referrals and further diagnostics ensure that not just outpatients on the recovery but others too get to know the services at Apollo hospitals.

 

If in cities, the brand is trying to connect better through multiple points, in smaller towns, it has launched a new format of hospitals called Reach Hospitals.

Apollo has till now focused on larger cities where realty prices have shot up. Suneeta Reddy, joint managing director who heads finance at Apollo says tier II and III towns offer better return on investments as well hold huge opportunities to grow over the years. "We can add beds at 50 per cent cost of the beds in metro cities and the investment required is around Rs 50 lakh a bed in these towns", she adds.

The treatments at Reach will cost 20-30 per cent less than Apollo's flagship hospitals and competition. These would house 150 beds, 40 intensive care unit beds, and five operation theatres each.

The Reach hospitals would still contain specialised diagnostics units of oncology, cardiac-care, neurology and radiology. These would even have air ambulances for remote areas neighbouring their towns.

"We expect around 30 per cent of our revenue and profits to come from these tier II and III cities in the next three to five years and have the potential to break even in a short span of time," says Suneeta.

In the next three years, Apollo is planning to add 2,400 beds through Reach, with 1,300 beds in smaller towns. To the count of four hospitals, three more will be added in Nellore, Trichy and Nashik.