In India, advanced facilities for healthcare are scarce, to say the least. There is a deep lacuna in the sphere of specialized healthcare. This void became glaringly apparent during the pandemic crisis. The best way to bridge this gap is Hospital expansion. If you are already a healthcare entrepreneur with your own hospital, there is a vast scope for expansion. Expansion can help you improve your patients’ experience and also advance the cause of healthcare accessibility for the nation.

Opportunities and Benefits of Hospital expansion

Expansion can help you

1. ACCOMMODATE MORE PATIENTS

If you find that your patient base and staff are increasing beyond your space capacity; hospital expansion is the way ahead for you. Expansion can help you cater to a wider customer base and provide quality healthcare to many more.

e.g., A small hospital can add a few wings or floors to be able to cater to more patients.

2. DIVERSIFY INTO NEW SEGMENTS

There is a big lacuna for specialized healthcare. You can broaden your hospital’s horizons by venturing into newer segments. This will make valuable additions to the basket of offerings that you will provide your patients.

The benefit will be two-way. Having multiple services and facilities under the same roof will be beneficial for the patient and profitable for you too.

e.g., An orthopaedic clinic can expand to have a physiotherapy and rehabilitation centre within its premises.

3. IMPROVE YOUR HOSPITAL’S WORKFLOW

Expansion can provide the needed space for you to add equipment, machinery and gadgets that can make things convenient for your employees and add efficiency to the workflow.

Moreover, if your current lay-out is sapping at your staff’s efficiency due to space constriction; expansion can improve productivity from start to finish.

e.g., An additional reception room can help to reduce workflow glitches.

4. GAIN ADDITIONAL SPACE FOR YOUR FACILITIES AND SERVICES

Hospital should be spacious and airy. This is another lesson that we should take from the pandemic…social distancing is a must. Capacious waiting rooms where patients do not feel stifled have become a must. Expansion can help you reduce congestion in waiting areas.

If you invest in expansion, you will get the space to house additional facilities and make more services available for your patients. This will improve the patient experience and help to build the reputation and image of your hospital.

E.g., An independent office for submission of insurance documents can be created.

5. MAKE HEALTHCARE ACCESSIBLE TO A DIVERSE SECTION OF SOCIETY

Expansion will help you to do what you are passionate about…that is caring for the health of people in a bigger way. Many will be able to gain access to your team’s specialized knowledge and benefit from your experience.

6. IMPROVE YOUR PROFITS OVER TIME.

After expansion, if your hospital offers a bigger menu of services, it will inadvertently earn more profits after reaching breakeven point.

However, you must remember that hospital expansion is not always a walk on rose petals. It might involve many thorny challenges. We have listed a few challenges that you are likely to face.

1. SITE FOR EXPANSION

If your hospital is located in a crowded tier-1 or tier-2 city, you may face a problem in procuring space for expansion. In this case, you might have to go for vertical addition of floors after procuring the necessary permissions. A healthcare consulting firm can help you narrow down the right site that will fit your requirements to a T.

2. MERGING ARCHITECTURE AND DESIGN

Seamlessly merging the architectural and infrastructural layout and design of the existing and the new premises so that the ethos of your hospital is maintained may be a difficult task. Your design team will have to consider this carefully if the new part must impeccably look like a part of the whole. Outsource this task to a hospital architecture design and planning firm for optimum outcomes.

3. FINANCING

Procuring the additional funding to invest into your expansion venture is another challenge that you will have to face. If you are not self-funding, you may have to take recourse to loans from banks or other financial organizations. For this, you must assure that you have a business strategic plan in place and that your previous records are flawless.

4. BLENDING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES OF OLD SYSTEMS AND NEW ONES

A team of designers and engineers will have to evaluate and assess the operational functionality of your layouts, workflows, equipment usage, space allocation, technology systems etc. before narrowing down on what will work best after the expansion has taken place. This merger of the existing and new has to be done in a smooth and streamlined manner from start to finish.

5. TIMELINE

Your expansion project’s timeline is a factor that you have to keep a keen eye on as your existing premises, facilities and services may be affected during construction and setting-up of the new endeavour. Any delay in the timeline can compromise with patient experience and lead to customer shifting.

6. GETTING GOVERNMENT PERMISSION

Healthcare is a heavily scrutinized segment. Expansion of a hospital will involve getting many licenses and approvals from the government and other authoritative bodies. This may involve loads of cumbersome paperwork and running around.

E.g., If a diagnostic centre wants to an X-ray unit too, AERB certificate to validate that the radiation used is not causing harm to health and to the environment is mandatory.

Try to outsource this time-consuming task to hospital consultants who offer medical license application services.

To put in a nutshell, hospital expansion is no cakewalk and involves multidimensional analysis, thoughtful planning and multilateral decision making. As a busy healthcare specialist, you may be boggled by the many challenges of this endeavour. If you need help, Hospertz, a leading Healthcare consultancy firm of India, is just a call away. We have a diverse cohort of experts including engineers, architects, designers, and cost auditors who can design customized and cost-effective expansion strategy for you and help you implement it from end-to-end.

Blog has been written by Dr. Vishal Jadhav, a veteran in the field of hospital consultancy with a rich experience of more than 20 years and founder of the Healthcare Consultancy Firm, Hospertz.

Dr. Vishal Jadhav, Director
hospertz@gmail.com
+91 9867712705/ 9820833149