India’s Healthcare – A Leading Sector for Revenue and Employment Generation
India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world. As the country experiences economic progress and technological advancements, the Indian healthcare sector is currently the third largest growth segment in India, with the revenues accounting for 5.2 percent of the GDP. With the rapid increase in healthcare institutions across the country, the sector holds huge promise, and has become one of the largest sectors in India regarding revenue generation and employment. India is one of the largest producing countries for generics. India is also experiencing a boom in medical tourism. India’s pharmaceutical industry is 3rd largest in terms of volume and 14th largest in terms of value globally.
The Indian healthcare industry comprises of hospitals, pharmaceutics, medical devices and equipment, telemedicine, health insurance, and other healthcare subsectors. Owing to the diversity of the sector and the advantages that the Indian healthcare industry holds over other developing economies, the sector is likely to hold a good stead in the future, in terms of business growth, revenue, and employment generation.
Revenue Opportunities:
Today, the healthcare sector in India is observing a tremendous growth with state-of-the-art infrastructure along with high quality and cost-effective healthcare services and delivery. The health sector’s strengthened coverage and increasing expenditures are due to the public health system as well as private players.
As per the reports, the healthcare sector’s contribution to the country’s revenue has registered a remarkable growth. During 2008-20, the healthcare market size is expected to record a CAGR of 16.5 percent and touch USD 160 billion by 2017. The industry, by attracting strong interest from private equity funds, is expected to reach USD 280 billion by 2020. (https://www.ibef.org/industry/healthcare-presentation). Thus, Indian healthcare sector has already established itself to be an important contributor to nation’s GDP. The recent budget announcement (Union Budget 2018) of National Health Protection Scheme to cover around 50 crore population in India, providing each family an insurance of up to Rs. 5 lakh every year in case of secondary and tertiary hospitalization, with a cost of Rs. 10,000 crores annually. Another welcome move is the expansion of 150,000 sub-centres to become health and wellness centres, with an allocation of Rs. 1200 crore. These measures will further boost the Indian healthcare industry.
The rising standards of living, growing awareness, heightened consumer expectations, rising demands, availability of preventive care, and affordability of the healthcare facilities remain the primary reasons for the healthcare sector to gain growth. Alongside, there is growing demand for quality healthcare services, and medical services are designed to address the changing healthcare needs in India. Taking a cue from the opportunity in the healthcare industry, increasingly private players are entering into mergers and acquisitions with other domestic and foreign companies to gain new markets and drive further growth.
India is gaining a reputed place in the global arena as a preferred healthcare destination, due to the advances in medical research and private investments in infrastructure development. While the public healthcare sector is still lagging, as it is under-utilized and inefficient, the private sector is dominant with quality and advanced healthcare services delivered at a globally competitive cost. As per data sources, 74% of the total spending on healthcare in India is from the private sources, most of which is out of pocket. This is because there is an inadequate public spending in healthcare, which gives the private hospitals the opportunity to take a major share of the domestic market.
(http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/healthcare-sector-may-hit-155-bn-revenue-by-2017-report-112121000014_1.html). The Indian government has also decided to increase its healthcare expenditure from the current 1.15% to 2.5% of GDP by end of 2025 in its National Health Policy. However, there is little progress in that direction as government budget allocation to health sector has not seen an appreciable increase in the last four years.
Employment Opportunities:
With the healthcare industry expanding, the employment generation within the sector and its subsectors are also on the rise. In fact, healthcare is currently one of the largest employers in India. Healthcare jobs are not just the typical inpatient hospital jobs but occupations outside the hospital realm are also manifold. Healthcare today is not just limited to hospitals and medical centers but there are job opportunities within the diverse segments of the healthcare industry. Not only medical professionals but engineers, biomedical professionals, management staff, and other technical jobs are also required. Opportunities in all these subsectors are beaming new career avenues for professionals from diverse fields of expertise. The healthcare sector offers not only good job prospects and decent pay package, but also potential for career advancement.
Owing to the expansions and technological developments that are taking place in the medical arena, there is bound to be a continued need for qualified human resources requirement within the sector. The Indian healthcare workforce is expected to double, from 3.6 million in 2013 to 7.4 million in 2022.
However, another aspect of the fast-paced growth that the healthcare sector is experiencing is the vast requirement of skilled healthcare professionals within the non-medical and non-technical domains such as hospital administrators, health managers, counsellors, therapists, public relations officers, along with other professionals, and there is a vast gap between the demand and availability of these cadres in the public heath space. What the sector currently needs is professionals having the right education and skills to efficiently manage the range of responsibilities. To this end, the International Institute of Health Management Research (IIHMR), New Delhi, stands tall as a premier healthcare organization offering high quality, global standard education to the aspiring candidates. The institute has been imparting training and preparing the candidates to cater to the needs of the healthcare sector. With years of excellence in the health-management education domain, the institute has remained involved in propagating industry-oriented healthcare education and hands-on training to prepare efficient healthcare professionals for the sector. The IIHMR also imparts executive training to enhance technical and managerial skills/abilities to in-service healthcare providers in the healthcare sector.
Contributed By:
Pradeep Panda, PhD
Professor of Health Economics
International Institute of Health Management Research, New Delhi
Email: pradeeppanda@iihmr.org
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