Bounce Back! Post Pandemic

Pandemics always come up with various life-threatening issues. COVID-19 outbreak came up with the same issues along with certain other problems involving public, administrative and healthcare sector concerns. It resembled the SARS outbreak but posed such challenges against the world that are uneasy to handle. The disease which started from Wuhan, China has now affected almost every country in a ruthless manner. Not only this, but they are being brutally harassed by the patients themselves. Social, economic, psychiatric and many other factors are responsible for deteriorating the health of these frontline healthcare workers who are now being allegedly regarded as “Healthcare Warriors”.

Labelled as a black swan event and likened to the economic scene of World War II, the outbreak of COVID-19 (the disease caused by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-COV-2)) has a detrimental effect on global healthcare systems with a ripple effect on every aspect of human life as we know it.1 Sohrabi et al. highlighted the extent of the outbreak with the World Health Organisation (WHO) declaring the COVID-19 outbreak as a global emergency on January 30, 20202 SARS-CoV-2 has left a long lasting impact on everyone worldwide and specially the medical fraternity, which is using the most cutting edge ways to treat the patients

COVID-19 is the public name given to the scientific name SARS-CoV-2 which has been studied by Coronavirus Study Group of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses3 and has found its symptoms in accordance with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV) which first came into light in 2002 and this re-emerged with a different name ten years later as the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV).With the research done on the impact of this virus and its origin, the preliminary details trace its origin to a family of single-stranded RNA viruses which are also known as Coronaviridae.

Effect of COVID19 in Indian Healthcare : While public policy measures have been implemented to contain the spread of COVID-19, the measures have resulted in significant operational disruption for many companies including those in the Indian healthcare industry. Staff quarantine, supply-chain failures, and sudden reductions in customer demand have generated serious complications for companies across a wider range of sectors than initially anticipated. For most, the revenue lost in this period represents a permanent loss and has put sudden, unanticipated pressure on working capital lines and liquidity. 

Despite the current crisis being a healthcare issue, the private healthcare system in the country continues to reel under the negative impact of COVID-19. There has been a significant drop in both in-patient and out-patient footfall for private hospital chains—be it a single speciality, multi-speciality, tertiary-care hospitals or even diagnostics businesses, during this lockdown. 

This sudden decline in business has had an immediate effect on hospitals’ ability to sustain fixed costs. The inability of new centres/hospitals to start generating cash, debt repayment obligations, decreased levels of medical tourism, and increased scheme revenues (which represents credit revenue) are some of the many factors impacting cash flow.  

Challenges during COVID19: In an effort to sustain these challenges, hospitals have begun implementing measures to reduce or defer costs, with a view to reserve cash in hand. In the context of consumables, supplier consolidation for better rates and renegotiation of credit periods for pharmacy and consumables are some measures instituted by hospitals to conserve their cash flow. On the personnel cost front, changes are being made to doctor-engagement models by moving doctors to fully variable models based on the revenue they generate. In the case of other staff/employees, increments and variable pay have been calibrated while evaluating shared services, in an attempt to further reduce overall employee costs. With respect to other fixed costs, initiatives such as the renegotiation of rent rates, vendor consolidation (for outsourced services such as housekeeping and security services), and deferral or staggered payment of annual maintenance costs have been administered. Most discretionary spends such as advertisement and sales promotions have largely been ceased. 

Management Strategies: The management theorist Henry Mintzberg famously defined strategy 5P's: plan, ploy, pattern, position, and perspective. We have adapted his framework to propose our own 5 Ps: position, plan, perspective, projects, and preparedness. The following questions can guide you as you work to bounce back from the crisis.

Position: To make smart strategic decisions, you must understand your organization’s position in your environment. Who are you in your market, what role do you play in your ecosystem, and who are your main competitors? You must also understand where you are headed. Can you shut down your operations and reopen unchanged after the pandemic? Can you regain lost ground? Will you be bankrupt, or can you emerge as a market leader fueled by developments during the lockdown?

We hear of many firms that are questioning their viability post-pandemic, including those in the travel, hospitality, and events industries. We also hear of firms accelerating their growth because their value propositions are in high demand; think of home office equipment, internet-enabled communication and collaboration tools, and home delivery services. Because of such factors, firms will differ in their resilience. You should take steps now to map your probable position when the pandemic eases.

Plan: A plan is a course of action pointing the way to the position you hope to attain. It should explicate what you need to do today to achieve your objectives tomorrow. In the current context, the question is what you must do to get through the crisis and go back to business when it ends.

The lack of a plan only exacerbates disorientation in an already confusing situation. When drawing up the steps you intend to take, think broadly and deeply, and take a long view.

Prospective: Perspective means the way an organization sees the world and itself. In all likelihood, your culture and identity will change as a result of the pandemic. A crisis can bring people together and facilitate a collective spirit of endurance — but it can also push people apart, with individuals distrusting one another and predominantly looking after themselves. It’s crucial to consider how your perspective might evolve. How prepared was your organization culturally to deal with the crisis? Will the ongoing situation bring your employees together or drive them apart? Will they see the organization differently when this is over? Your answers will inform what you can achieve when the pandemic ends.

Projects: Your answers to the questions above should point you to a set of projects for tackling your coronavirus-related problems. The challenge is to prioritize and coordinate initiatives that will future-proof the organization. Beware of starting numerous projects that all depend on the same critical resources, which might be specific individuals, such as top managers, or specific departments, such as IT. With too many new initiatives, you could end up with a war over resources that delays or derails your strategic response.

Preparedness: Finally, you need to assess your organization’s preparedness. Are you ready and able to accomplish the projects you’ve outlined, particularly if much of your organization has shifted to remote work? We see big differences in preparedness at the individual, team, organization, and national levels. The resources at hand, along with the speed and quality of decision-making processes, vary greatly, and the differences will determine who achieves and who falls short of success.

The coronavirus has had unprecedented impacts on the world — and the worst is yet to come. Companies must act today if they are to bounce back in the future. Doing so will help the world as a whole recover — and, we hope, become more resilient in the process.

COVID19 created opportunities: Effective use of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE), mass communication of quarantine measures, effective quarantine monitoring measures, as well as digital solutions to regulate essential logistics also played a vital role. Several start-ups rose to the occasion by providing quick solutions relating to each of these areas.

However, a majority of the funding calls primarily focused on molecular research, drug discovery and vaccine development, even though our country lacks the ecosystem to deliver on any of these. Our country’s expertise is in reverse engineering cheaper solutions.

Pure software-based solutions and newer concepts in personal and mass protection were often overlooked for funding. The focus of funding seemed to be based on novelty and following the West, rather than appropriateness and requirement of solutions on the ground in India.

Even successful solutions ran through regulatory roadblocks. Thoroughness of regulatory approvals must be a feature of healthcare service, and justifiably so, as healthcare directly relates to life and death. It does seem that the process of regulatory approvals has become globally centralised and we have ended up being caught in a warp where we are following other nations’ regulations when we actually need to understand our own country’s requirements and support our own localised solutions.

India takes its responsibility of innovation and implementation of cutting-edge technology seriously. Speaking at the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons (Glasgow), the Director General of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), Dr Balram Bhargava, who is a cardiologist by training, said, “We see our task as creating a climate of innovation in India, supporting it financially and ensuring that the entrepreneur is adequately rewarded by retention of fair equity in his/her innovation.”

Buckle Up! Let's a Healthier India!