As a renowned physician, you have already set a gold standard in healthcare for patient care and selfless commitment. Now as you are venturing to establish your own hospital or private practice, you may be worried about whether your self-driven project will pay you return on investment, whether it will be successful and whether you will be able to rise about competition and build a legacy of trust.

All these questions are natural because even if your goals are well-defined, sometimes external factors create obstacles in the path of success. Healthcare business like any other enterprise can be like a roller coaster ride and sometimes take you to the heights of success and at other time plummet you to the depths of failure. To judge if you will be able to weather this ride safely, you must invest in a feasibility report to see if your aspiration really merits investment.

What is a feasibility report?

A project feasibility report is a complete and all-inclusive qualitative and quantitative predictive analysis of your aspirational venture. An unbiased feasibility study developed by experts can tell you if your project is worth the time, efforts and capital that you will be investing in it, right at the beginning so that you do not fall into any trouble.

A feasibility study reaffirms is your project is legally, technically and operationally achievable besides being economically admissible.

There might be many components in a healthcare feasibility report including competitor studies, market analysis, site and location decision, infrastructure and equipment valuation and financial assessment.

Assessments carried out in a comprehensive feasibility study

1. Financial/ commercial Feasibility

Even in an altruistic and noble profession like healthcare, return on investment and profits matter to stay viable. Practically speaking, your dream venture has to be profitable and not only philanthropic. A project feasibility report can help you judge if your venture will be financially profitable in the long run. A feasibility report will give a precise break-up of funds required at every stage of hospital construction and operation. This will give you a detailed insight into the cost estimation of your project.

2. Technical feasibility

Hospitals need to house an array of medical equipment and devices. This machinery procurement involves tremendous cost due to the hi-tech specifications, storage needs, maintenance and repair considerations.

A feasibility study analyses this in detail and then can give advice on whether a particular equipment is really needed in your healthcare unit. Several operating systems like the hospital management system have to be installed to ensure a seamless transfer of data too. A feasibility report can assess which systems will be cost effective.

3. Operational feasibility

A hospital is a dynamic workplace. Here each step and phase have to be integrated and synchronized so that workflow can go on with minimum interruption. A feasibility study can predict if your operations will go off without a hitch. It will help you remove any lacunas in operation right from the beginning.

4. Legal feasibility

Hospitals and healthcare units require a plethora of permissions and allowances and are governed by the regulatory norms of various authorizing bodies. A feasibility study can evaluate whether your project will be able to fulfil all these norms so that any legal hassle or conflicts are prevented.

For e.g., if a hospital chain is planning to expand in a location where there are floor extension restrictions, they will be able to find that the project is not feasible before wasting time, money and energy on an unviable project.

5. Market feasibility

As a first-time medical entrepreneur, you might be blank regarding the competition, trends, transitions, growth curves and paradigms in your segment. A feasibility report does an in-depth study of all these parameters. This will help you to get a birds-eye view of the market.

6. Infrastructure feasibility

A hospital set-up involves mammoth investment because whether big or small, it houses furniture, fixtures, electrical circuits, plumbing systems, air purification systems and much more. A feasibility study can accurately judge if all this infrastructure investment will pay good dividends in return after the passage of some years.

Proven benefits of a feasibility study

1.  Unravels the preferences of your target audience
2. Helps you self-introspect to identify your niche and USP
3.  Helps you determine if your project is viable and profitable.
4. Gives you and your stakeholders an unbiased overview of your project.
5. Makes you aware of any hurdles or speed breakers to success
6. Gives you an idea about business alternatives and growth opportunities.
7. Helps you in organizing funds for investment.
8. Helps you set a price protocol after in-depth competitor analysis
9. Helps you zero in on the perfect site for your hospital
10. Helps you plan recruitment of trained and untrained staff.

You may feel that a feasibility study is a big investment involves a big cost. However, the cost of not performing a feasibility study is more as it can culminate in poor decision-making and long-term losses.

To summarise, a feasibility study can steer you away from the whirlpools and dangerous currents and protect you from drowning in a sea of debt or losses, if your venture is impractical. It can arm you with critical data on the various aspects of your hospital project and help you make an informed decision on whether your business aspiration has the potential to be successful. If you need any help in undertaking this exercise for your venture, consult Hospertz, a leading healthcare consultancy firm of India.

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