Healthcare retail may face manpower issues

Retail healthcare, a novel healthcare delivery model, seems to be the new mantra. But experts are wondering if there is enough trained manpower in India to enable this to take off.

In the US, the potential of the business, called McMedicine, has attracted non-healthcare brands like Wal-Mart, Osco Drug, Target Corp and CVS Corp. There these players run the show with nurses or pharmacists instead of qualified doctors. But in India most joining the bandwagon plan to post doctors at such outlets.

Retail healthcare is an attempt to bring healthcare out of the hospitals. It is the delivery of healthcare in a non-hospital ambience where the aim is to provide services mostly aimed at wellness and preventive healthcare.

Retail healthcare in India aims to provide consulting, diagnostics, minor emergency services, clinical care like dental and cosmetics, and dispensing of medicines.

The estimates of the number of such clinics to be set up range from 1,000 to 4,000, depending on who you ask, in the next two to three years. About 60-70 people are required to man a clinic of this nature, according to industry experts.

Reliance has kicked off their plan with their first store with health and wellness products in Hyderabad.

In all, they plan to have over a 1,000 such stores. The other groups joining the rush are Manipal Health Systems, Fortis, Apollo, Dabur, Gold Shield, Futures Group, AVB, Bharti, Max among others.

Says Sandeep Sinha, Program Manager, Healthcare Practice, Frost & Sullivan: "There are many cliniciansôphysicians who go around clinics. They will have an opportunity to associate with these setups."

But, when it comes to staff, "for healthcare retail they need not be of a clinical background, but should have good communication skills and be presentable."

To run retail healthcare on the wellness principle, "there has to be a change in the mindset of doctors, from treating the sick to treating the healthy," said Somnath Das, COO, Manipal Cure and Care.

For such doctors and other technical personnel, to find a way back into mainstream healthcare may not be easy.

"At the CXO level these business groups may be able to rope in people from the hospitality and retail sector. The availability of people who fit exactly into the job though will be an issue. Firms may look at the retail sector for other staff," said Krishna Prakash, Managing Partner, EMA Partners, international executive search firm.

But will such staff be able to fit into the Indian variant of retail healthcare?

Again, doctors may prefer to be associated with groups that are into providing healthcare and where they have a scope for developing their career profile and skills, and it is only set-ups like Manipal's that have a back-end support of Manipal Health Systems' hospitals. So staffing may become an issue down the line.