Indian Doctor Tagged 'Henry Ford of Heart Surgery' Drives Down Costs

[Amerigo Vespucci]

Indian Doctor Tagged 'Henry Ford of Heart Surgery' Drives Down Costs

http://crooksandliars.com/susie-madrak/indian-doctor-tagged-henry-ford-heart

By Susie Madrak Monday Nov 23, 2009 7:00pm



Since this is going to be a healthcare-themed kind of week, this is an interesting look at an Indian surgeon and entrepreneur who's making heart surgery affordable for even India's poorest - and whose facilities will be coming to us via a short plane ride. This very well may be the U.S. health care model of the future:

BANGALORE -- Hair tucked into a surgical cap, eyes hidden behind thick-framed magnifying glasses, Devi Shetty leans over the sawed open chest of an 11-year-old boy, using bright blue thread to sew an artificial aorta onto his stopped heart.

As Dr. Shetty pulls the thread tight with scissors, an assistant reads aloud a proposed agreement for him to build a new hospital in the Cayman Islands that would primarily serve Americans in search of lower-cost medical care. The agreement is inked a few days later, pending approval of the Cayman parliament.

Dr. Shetty, who entered the limelight in the early 1990s as Mother Teresa's cardiac surgeon, offers cutting-edge medical care in India at a fraction of what it costs elsewhere in the world. His flagship heart hospital charges $2,000, on average, for open-heart surgery, compared with hospitals in the U.S. that are paid between $20,000 and $100,000, depending on the complexity of the surgery.

The approach has transformed health care in India through a simple premise that works in other industries: economies of scale. By driving huge volumes, even of procedures as sophisticated, delicate and dangerous as heart surgery, Dr. Shetty has managed to drive down the cost of health care in his nation of one billion.

His model offers insights for countries worldwide that are struggling with soaring medical costs, including the U.S. as it debates major health-care overhaul.

[madrchsod]

1. fly to the cayman islands during a heart attack?

do`t think that would be practical.

it sounds great but the devil is in the details. aftercare and who`s going to pay. who`s going to accept you into long term therapy. in network? try suing for a medical error in the cayman islands.

[Electric Monk]

2. A friend of our family, a doctor btw, had a triple bypass a couple years back, and

I clearly remember something he told me in regards to heart surgery.

"You want your surgeon to be the one that's done thousands, not the generalist surgeon who's only done a few hearts. Recovery rates are way higher when your Doc is super specialized and only does hearts."

He's doing just fine now, by the way. Complete recovery.


Interesting article, btw, thanks for posting.

[anigbrowl]

3. exactly - practice makes perfect

Most Indian surgeons perform way more procedures than their American counterparts. They also have a philosophy of 'good enough' when it comes to instrumentation and so on - is there any point in spending millions on slightly better X-ray machines and so on, if the diagnostic gains are only 1 or 2%? I've been following this trend for a while (as in, several years) and I think we would do well to adopt the assembly-line approach here instead of obsessing over every patient being a unique snowflake.