Why you should look at Portea’s plans
Imagine a company in Europe or the USA that provides medicalised homecare services for the elderly suddenly deciding that it was going to try and meet ”all the non-acute needs of a typical family.” Imagine the siloes the company would have to negotiate with payors! In fact, such a venture would rapidly prove impossible. Yet this is precisely what Portea is doing in India.
That, of course, is because it working a model in which the consumer (the Indian middle class) pays. And what that consumer wants is to be able to see a doctor (virtually or a house visit) at a drop of a hat if a child is ill, or to buy some domiciliary care for an aged grandparent now that her children have all left for far away cities, to get a programme to manage the mother’s diabetes or to organise some physiotherapy for dad’s bad shoulder. Meanwhile Portea has seen employees grow from zero to 5,000 in three years and raised over $40m in funding.
It is this freedom of action which makes private health care services in Emerging Markets such a fascinating place. The full potential for business models will emerge in India, China or Singapore, not the rich West. And this makes these markets something that big European operators (and policymakers) can’t afford to ignore. For instance, the big oxygen homecare suppliers. Linde, Air Liquide etc, who are cautiously moving into other specialist areas of medicalised homecare need to keep their eyes firmly on India and China. That is because these “wider models” will eventually be imported into Europe and the United States. K Ganesh, the chairman of Portea is presenting at Healthcare Business International 2017 in London, April 4-5.
We would welcome your thoughts on this story. Email your views to Max Hotopf or call 0207 183 3779.
