Vaatsalya joins the Business Call to Action

New York / Bangalore, 19 December 2014: Vaatsalya, one of the most innovative companies in India has joined the Business Call to Action (BCtA). The company has made a commitment to improve the quality of the life by improving access to affordable health options by scaling up their model of affordable and primary and secondary healthcare services to reach population of 2 million people in the next five years.

Vaatsalya hospitals provide healthcare services to half a million people per year in underserved areas, and its goal is to reach a million people per year in 3 years and 2 million people per year in five years. The company operates 9 hospitals across the states of Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh and is the first and largest hospital network in India targeting smaller towns and villages rather than large cities.

A typical Vaatsalya hospital has three or four full-time specialists and total staff strength ranging between 60 and 100, including nurses, matrons, administrator and social workers. Vaatsalya hospitals also use the services of a large number of external doctors depending on the local demand and supply conditions. Vaatsalya serves approximately 125,000 patients per quarter in their outpatient departments and 3,500 patients per month in their inpatient departments, across the 9 hospitals. Vaatsalya has 700 employees and approximately 600 beds including 100 intensive care unit beds, neonatal intensive care unit beds, and surgical intensive care unit beds. Vaatsalya's business model innovation lies in creating healthcare services which are appropriate and financially viable for the smaller towns and help bring urban services to semi-urban and rural areas.

By introducing lower cost services and healthcare options to remote regions, Vaatsalya is working to improve the rate the development of BOP markets and strengthen delivery of services to reach a large population. Their plans to grow this model is an important way to bridge the gap in services to the poor, said Suba Sivakumaran, Programme Manager for the Business Call to Action.

Dr Ashwin Naik, Co-Founder of Vaatsalya said, Our mission at Vaatsalya has been to bring affordable healthcare services within reach of semi-urban and rural India. We are proud to say that Vaatsalya has helped create access to new services and improve the standard of care in many of the towns that we operate in, not only within our hospitals, but even in the ecoystem. Our model is today being replicated in many parts of the country and we feel privileged to be joining an international forum like Business Call to Action, which will help us share our learnings with a much wider audience and also learn from our peers who are part of the BCtA network. As we embark on our new phase of growth, we are excited to pledge our commitment to bring our healthcare services to many more towns in the next five years.

For More Information:

BCtA: Karen Newman, karen.newman@undp.org +1.212.906.5194
Vaatsalya: Deepali Thakur, drdeepali@vaatsalya.com, 180042588888

The Business Call to Action (BCtA): The Business Call to Action (BCtA) is a global initiative that challenges companies to develop inclusive business models that offer the potential for development impact along with commercial success. The initiative is the result of a partnership between the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, UK Department for International Development, US Agency for International Development, United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Global Compact and the International Business Leaders Forum to meet the Millennium Development Goals by 2015. Companies report on progress toward commitments on an annual basis. @bctainitiative

About Vaatsalya

Winner of the Inaugural Porter prize for value based healthcare delivery and named in the top 10 innovative companies in India by Fast Company, Vaatsalya is a recipient of several awards including VC Circle award for healthcare organisation with innovative service delivery 2014, Frost and Sullivan Award for Healthcare Excellence in 2010, Ranked # 5 on the India Fast 25 List for 2010 by AllWorld Network, Sankalp Award for Healthcare Inclusion in 2009, BiD challenge India in 2007; and LRAMP award in the enterprise category in 2008. @Vaatsalya