Health Care Management in India: Some Issues and Challenges

Objectives: The objective of this research is to study the developments in Indian health care sector and will torch upon the rising demand of health care sector in India. The study will evolve the concept of globalization, development of information technology, medical tourism, role of urbanization, growth of health care insurance sector, affordability of health care in India and the role played by major private health care firms in India. Study design: Descriptive design. Methods: Data used here is secondary data, and collection of data is done from different health care surveys in India, health care websites, journals, newspapers, health magazines and conferences. Results: Rising demand of health care in India. India is one among the leading developing countries in health care as the demand of this sector is expected to reach US$ 100 billion by 2015 from the current US$ 65 billion, growing at around 20 per cent a year, according to rating agency Fitch, and the major factors driving the growth in the sector include increasing population, growing lifestyle related health issues, cheaper costs for treatment, thrust in medical tourism, improving health insurance penetration, increasing disposable income, government initiatives and focus on Public-Private Partnership (PPP) models. Conclusion: With rising health care demand in India, private sector hospitals and health care firms started to come with the concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by giving subsidized rates and rural coverage concepts in India, so that the poor people can afford for the necessary treatment, as 32.7 per cent of the total Indian people fall below the international poverty line of US$ 1.25 per day (PPP) while 68.7 per cent live on less than US$ 2 per day (www.wikipedia.org). Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative (OPHI) stated in 2010, that eight Indian states have more poor people than 26 poorest African nations combined which totals to more than 410 million poor in the poorest African countries.