Bengaluru startup will bring Manipal Hospitals to your doorstep

BENGALURU: City-based Manipal Hospitals, which operates over 5,200 beds, has partnered with healthcare startup Portea Medical to expand its reach into the emerging home healthcare space. Manipal had rolled out a specialized at-home healthcare vertical Manipal Homecare in 2010, which will now be operated by Portea. While the brand Manipal Homecare will remain, Portea is putting in place a dedicated team of medical practitioners for Manipal Hospitals, which serves over 2 million patients annually. Across industries, this partnership is among a few instances where a two-year old startup has taken the lead in helping an established industry player physically expand its market reach. Portea, founded by serial entrepreneur duo K Ganesh and Meena Ganesh, undertakes 30,000 home visits per month across 18 cities, with a focus on delivering medical care for elders, patients suffering from chronic diseases, and post-operative care. "We want to ensure the continuum of care is maintained and range of medical services is available to patients in the comfort of their homes," said Ajay Bakshi, CEO, Manipal Hospitals. Manipal Homecare will offer physician consultation, specialized nursing, physiotherapy, diagnostics, pharmaceutical delivery, and equipment rentals. A range of post-surgical care, cancer care, and neuro-rehab services will also be offered. "This can effectively reduce the length of stay in the hospitals, and in turn bring down the cost associated with the overall treatment," said Bakshi. While India has only 0.7 hospitals beds per 1,000 people, far below the global average of 2.6 beds per 1,000 people, only 40% of cases in a hospital require critical care and assistance. The remaining 60% cases can be treated by doctors, nurses, nursing attendants, physiotherapists, with the aid of medicines, diagnostics and medical equipment at home. In July, Portea rolled out at-home cancer care treatment at half the cost hospitals charge. In the same period they started at-home trials with a quasi-medically trained team of 25 carers, to help mothers post-delivery with issues like lactation. "Effective medical care delivered at home can play a key role in the recovery process," said H Sudarshan Ballal, medical director and chairman of the medical advisory board at Manipal Hospitals. Meena Ganesh, co-founder and CEO, Portea Medical, believes that going forward about 40% of the startup's revenue would come from partnerships and tie-ups with big hospital chains. -TOI