A diagnosis is an important tool for you and your doctor. Doctors and therapists use a diagnosis to advise you on treatment options and future health risks. Another reason a diagnosis matters is that it tells health insurance companies that you have a condition requiring medical care. A doctor’s diagnosis is also necessary to qualify for Social Security disability support and job protection.
Anand K., CEO, SRL Diagnostics, has over 25 years of robust work experience in the healthcare industry specializing in Diagnostics and Laboratory services in India, South Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. He comes with deep subject knowledge of the diagnostics and healthcare industry, combined with strong business acumen, allowing him to view business with a wider lens then narrow it down to connect the dots, identify business drivers, understand complex issues, take actions and drive results. He joined SRL from Apollo Hospitals Group where he was the CEO of their Diagnostic Business Unit of AHLL, based in Hyderabad.
The Company’s philosophy has always been to contribute to the health and wellness of the communities they serve. Over the years they have empowered doctors, hospitals, and other medical professionals in reaching the right diagnoses. Along with that, our preventive portfolios have also created opportunities for every individual to manage their own health. Keeping this philosophy at the center, we envision becoming the most trusted and dynamic leader in the diagnostic industry by providing exceptional customer experience through science, technology, and people with a focus on quality, innovation, and compassionate care. Let us take a look at what Mr. Anand has to share with us in the highlights of the interview below:
Enlighten us with the journey of your establishment so far
SRL diagnostics has a rich legacy of 25 years, helping patients in their journey towards better health with presence in more than 600 cities across 30 states and Union territories in the country. In our category, we have always been an early adopter of technology, right from our genesis.
Reflecting on the past two and a half decades what comes to mind are the opportunities where SRL has played a significant role for its customers and patients. From providing the best diagnostics services in rural, tribal-dominated areas of Jharkhand, Himachal and Uttar Pradesh to catering to the urban health-conscious population by unveiling preventive diagnostics brand – SRL Care. Our people have played an instrumental role in UNICEF’s Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) where SRL was not just responsible for collecting samples of young adolescent children but was also in charge of dispatching their reports back to these villages – something that only SRL could do. On the technology side, our strategic project for developing Artificial Intelligence Solutions in Pathology along with Microsoft has been one of its kind in the industry – again speaks volumes about our capability and strength. Today, SRL is the only true Pan-India diagnostic brand that is present across the length and breadth of the country in more than 600 cities, with many firsts along its way. We were the first ones to have a centralized lab information system much before they even came into India and also pioneers to have a website in the diagnostics industry. We were also the first diagnostics company to have a full fledged Research and Development (R&D) Division. Besides, we are the first national lab to use of AI & Big Data to launch a full-blown loyalty program and smart+ reports for our customers. We were also the first diagnostics company to set up labs internationally, in Dubai and Nepal about 10 years ago. Today, we cater to international markets like Southeast Asia & Middle East.
It definitely hasn’t been an easy journey for our firm, our people have had to work through some turbulent times. But SRL had always sailed through in this highly competitive market and at the same time created its own niche.
Give a detailed summary of the key personality(s) life before and after their entry into the diagnostics and pathology services space
Anand K., CEO, SRL Diagnostics – has over 25 years of robust work experience in the healthcare industry specializing in Diagnostics and Laboratory services in India, South Asia, Africa and Middle East. He comes with deep subject knowledge of diagnostics and healthcare industry, combined with strong business acumen, allowing him to view business with a wider lens then narrow it down to connect the dots, identify business drivers, understand complex issues, take actions and drive results. He joined SRL from Apollo Hospitals Group where he was the CEO of their Diagnostic Business Unit of AHLL, based at Hyderabad.
Kindly talk about different care packages and services offered by your diagnostic and pathology center
SRL Care, by the brand, is a platform which offers range of comprehensive, customized full body check-up packages. The packages are a part of the company’s initiatives to change the lives of people by showcasing the benefits of a preventive healthcare mindset. The package is recommended keeping in mind a customer’s age, gender, lifestyle, health history and life-stage. The consumer simply need to log on to SRL’s mobile app or website, or they can just walk into any lab to get a preventive package based on their specific requirements and/ or age profile to suit the particular needs of the individual consumer.
What is the vision and mission of your center?
Our Company’s philosophy has always been to contribute to the health and wellness of the communities we serve. Over the years we have empowered doctors, hospitals and other medical professionals in reaching the right diagnoses. Along with that, through our preventive portfolios we have created opportunities for every individual to manage their own health. Keeping this philosophy at the center, we envision becoming most trusted and dynamic leader in diagnostic industry by providing exceptional customer experience through science, technology and people with focus on quality, innovation and compassionate care.
How the technological advancements and innovation in the healthcare space has influenced your diagnostic and pathology center’s daily operations?
We have witnessed a shift in customer preferences; as more and more people are now opting to book online tests, home collection and telehealth is the new mode of diagnosis. There has been a 70% growth in this segment as Home collection has become the preferred mode for tier 1 cities, post the pandemic.
With the growing relevance of connected devices, IoT and wearable, a new era of self-monitoring has been ushered in. Through equipment, now available at home, and AI technologies, the role of diagnosis can be enhanced and changed drastically. The sum of this shift amount to a highly-informed customer base that is aware of their healthcare needs. Therefore, to cater to this segment, SRL has a mobile app and a website. Recently we also introduced Whatsapp for Business to share test reports, which has been useful in reducing patients’ waiting time and provide information on the go.
What are your strategically driven plans to be implemented in-order to enhance the efficiencies of your pathology center in the upcoming year?
Digitalization in diagnostics is transforming the job of pathologists into a more creative and data-driven one while it is allowing patients to receive diagnoses faster and with higher accuracy. Hence, going forward we would like our pathologists to have an option to report from anywhere, and hence we have established Digital Pathology labs within our reference laboratories in Gurgaon, Mumbai and Bangalore. Furthermore, it will help us in leveraging the talent pool efficiently and will allow technicians and lab doctors to read images remotely, enabling real-time virtual collaboration between their multi-disciplinary care teams.
In the future, we will also see an increase in the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into digital pathology. Most current researches are focusing on developing AI to improve the software used in digital pathology. SRL is already working closely with Microsoft to develop algorithms that would provide tools to pathologists for faster and more accurate diagnoses of diseases such as cancer, remotely. This is especially useful in remote areas as you can get the data to the doctor in no time.
What does the future look like for your pathology center in terms of growth and expansion?
SRL has a strong network of 400+ labs and 1800+ customer touch points spread across 600 Cities, 30 States and Union Territories. With recent pandemic there was an immediate demand for faster turnaround time on COVID RT PCR reports. Hence, we have expanded our capacity for COVID testing significantly, with RT-PCR labs and centers opening across length of the country. So far we have opened 12 RT-PCR facilities across the country. We have opened two labs in Mumbai, one each in Gurgaon, Ludhiana, Raipur, Chennai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune, Guwahati and Kolkata. In addition to this, we are catering to rural and tribal areas like Deoghar, Jharkhand.
In the coming months, we will continue our journey towards market share improvement in the geographies that we operate through the consolidation of organic growth and also evaluate inorganic growth opportunities as they arise.
We all know the Covid-19 pandemic has created a lot of workload for the caregivers and ancillary healthcare service providers. But what problems your pathology center has faced specifically in this ongoing pandemic?
A lot has happened in the diagnostic industry ever since the lockdown started in the country in mid-March. There has been a massive decline in the B2C business with a significantly lower footfall of walk-ins during the lockdown. This was only aggravated further with the restriction on the interstate and intrastate movement, giving rise to logistical challenges to move samples around. Restrictions on OPD services and elective surgeries at hospitals and clinic, majorly affected B2B business in Q1. However, in Q2 we were able to regain momentum with the unlocking of the economy.
In your opinion, what is the industry scenario of Indian diagnostics and pathology centers? (Kindly answer this question in about 200-300 words apart from the word limit mentioned above, as your views will be portrayed in our upcoming article for this edition)
The Indian Diagnostics industry is witnessing a strong growth and is coming out of shadows with the rise in awareness on preventive health, changing lifestyle due to Covid-19. The pathology market size in India is around INR 45000 crores growing at the rate of 13 –14% every year. However, the diagnostic sector in India is highly fragmented with organized sector having only around 15% share. There’s a need for all the states to adopt Clinical Establishment Act that will help the state to monitor the technical competence and ensure adequate quality control on procedures in the labs including mandatory accreditation requirements. While the diagnostic industry has always been dominated by the unorganized players, major diagnostic chains are slowly disrupting the market by acquiring smaller local labs.
Furthermore, the sector is witnessing several major trends that are powered by growth drivers like changing customer expectations, the rise of informed and aware consumer base opting for preventive health, widespread adoption of personalized medicine driven by precision diagnostics – Genomics, and the trend moving towards digital healthcare and home based services.
The ‘Diagnostics of the Future’ is envisioned to be built on smarter, safer and sustainable lab setups which will be driven by design thinking and smart technology to meet the most pressing challenges. To provide personalized care, the laboratories would need to find newer ways to tackle changing demand for healthcare services, adopt smart integration technologies, data science and analytics. In the coming future, Clinical Lab 2.0, fueled by the pandemic, will redefine the role of diagnostics in the care continuum, aligning with value-based healthcare. For laboratories to take on their future role, another vital aspect will be to focus on their healthcare workers’ well-being and investments on training and development of human capital.
