CEO Insights Magazine

The healthcare industry has emerged as one of India's largest and poignant sectors, both in terms of revenue and employment. Escalating at a brusque pace owing to its consolidating coverage, advanced services and increasing expenditure by public as well private players, the Indian healthcare sector has proved its particularity across the global podium by successfully tackling the waves of the covid pandemic. Emerging as one of the key drivers of this impeccable domain, Dr. Nandini Ali (Head Brand & Marcom, Apollo Hospitals Enterprise) is playing a pragmatic role in navigating the Indian healthcare sector to a much explicit summit along with her firm Apollo Hospitals, a trailblazing healthcare organization of India. With myriad specialities, Apollo Hospitals deliver the best of healthcare at par with the other leading players in the world, and Dr Nandini has to ensure that the communi cation is as cutting edge as the technologies used at Apollo Hospitals. When asked about her motive behind venturing into the healthcare domain, Dr. Nandini replies, "Healthcare has always been my passion and I particularly enjoy the dynamism of healthcare communication. Every day brings a new challenge and this is what keeps me motivated".

Dr. Nandini engages in an exclusive interaction with CEO Insights

Define Apollo Hospitals Enterprise as an organization and where does it currently stand in the market?

Apollo Hospitals is today Asia's foremost integrated healthcare services provider with a robust presence across the healthcare ecosystem, including super speciality hospitals providing tertiary and quaternary care, primary care & diagnostic clinics, pharmacies, tele medicine facilities, medical, nursing, paramedical & healthcare management colleges, Medvarsity for e-learning, and a Research Foundation.

Apollo Hospitals has been delivering clinical excellence at an affordable cost with the best of modern technology for over 38 years now. We have always pioneered the adoption of the latest in medical technology and a prime example is South East Asia's first Proton Therapy Centre in Chennai. This healthcare leadership is backed by Apollo's patient centric culture with TLC (Tender Loving Care) and has been honoured by the trust of over 150 million individuals who came from 140 countries.

The last few years have seen Apollo Hospitals strengthen its digital health care delivery through Ask Apollo and now 24/7 which allows round the clock access to Apollo and now 24/7 which allows round

the clock access to healthcare. This builds on our network of 71 hospitals, 200+ clinics, 800 diagnostic centres, 70 dialysis units with over 12000 best doctors to ensure a patient can get a consultation with an Apollo doctor within 15 minutes from any where in the country or abroad.

Apollo Hospitals has been delivering clinical excellence at an affordable cost with the best of modern technology for over 38 years now. We have always pioneered the adoption of the latest in medical technology and a prime example is South East Asia's first Proton Therapy Centre in Chennai. This healthcare leader ship is backed by Apollo's patient centric culture with TLC(Tender Loving Care) and has been honoured by the trust of over 150 million individuals who came from 140 countries.

Could you elaborate on its online consultation portal, Apollo 24/7?
With advances in digital technology and the availability of fast data connectivity, Apollo 24/7 App brings you healthcare with no appointments, 24/7/365 right in the palm of your hand. The Virtual Video consultation via India top doctors gives patients the benefits of real time, face-to-face interaction with a real doctor via secure video technology using the patient's smartphone. With round the clock, on-demand live video visits, patients can speak to medical providers through video chats or voice chats. This facility will help address a range of issues from general health concerns, nutrition and physical therapy, mental health and wellness, to prenatal and postpartum care and pediatric care. The app also provides for medicine delivery within 2 hours of doctor consultation anywhere in India. There is also an integrated diagnostic facility with a collection of samples from home.

Apollo 24/7 facilitates effective and round the clock management of the patient's condition along with its ability to personalize healthcare per patient by delivering treatment plans, diet plans, rehabilitation plans, and other necessary plans to manage health conditions in the best possible manner.

Tell us how Apollo hospital has been able to constantly make customers prefer its services the most among its peers in the healthcare sector in India?
Apollo Hospitals'focus has been to always been deliver a personalized and integrated experience to patients, with enhanced clinical outcomes at par with the best in the world but at one tenth of the cost when compared to international hospitals.

We have been the pioneer in getting the latest medical technology to India and continue to be the preferred healthcare destination through clinical excellence, high standards of quality, and skilled, experienced doctors. With Centres of Excellence for key specialities, we have been able to focus on both organ specific and multidisciplinary channels of care.

With WHO stating that the next big pandemic will be from non-communicable disease, Apollo saw this threat much before anyone could when it launched India first cardiac preventive health care package over 30 years ago. Today with its flagship Health Management Program "Apollo ProHealth" which leverages our experience of 38 years and 25 million health checks which has been created by a team of medical experts with vast knowledge, is Apollo's deep dedication to creating a Non Communicable Diseases free world.

Share about Project Kavach. How did it tackle the challenges imposed by the COVID pandemic?
We deployed Project Kavach, a comprehensive, integrated COVID-19 management program, across our network. In living our Patient First philosophy, we ensured patients had 24/7 access to quality healthcare our ambulances and diagnostic services, Emergency Care, and 4118 pharmacies across the country. Project Kavach deployed several unique strategies such as an AI-based Covid-19 screener, ramped up our testing capabilities with first of its kind drive through testing, the 24/7 integrated app for teleconsultations and medication delivery. We also ramped up our treatment Creation of separate facilities for COVID-19 patients across the hospital network with ICUfacilities for the critically ill and defined protocols for treatment of post COVID complications such as Long COVID.

Health monitoring services at home ('Hospital at home')a multi stakeholder partnership to provide medical care in hotel rooms across the country through Stay-I ('Hospital at hotel'), and methods to rapidly update care protocols across the entire system and to help reduce overall spread as well as mortality, are initiated.

Participating in the world largest vacci nation drive against COVID 19, we are proud to state that we at apollo have been the largest private vaccinator with over 8 million vaccinations given to date. Project Kavach has achieved its aims through a robust rollout and has impacted millions of lives.

Dr. Nandini Ali, Head - Brand & Marcom, Apollo Hospitals Group
Commencing her professional journey with Family Health Plan and then becoming part of the Apollo Group, Dr Nandini has been in the healthcare industry for over 22 years. She helmed position of CMO at Apollo Munich Health Insurance for over 11 years before shifting to Apollo Hospitals Group where she currently heads Brand and Marcom.