One Mission, Multiple Roads: Aravind Eye Care System in

2009

Arani Das (10A)Lekha Kamath (23A)Saman Nayyar (40A)Soham Gandhi (50A)Vishwadeep Mishra (55A)

Amit Yadav (5A)Ashish Khola (12A)Khushit Mehta (21A)Rohit Nadgouda (37A)Sameeksha Gupta (42A)

Section A – Group A

What all changes in the environment is impacting Aravind eye care?

•Cases of cataract increased at a pace faster than it was possible to reach the patients and perform surgeries

Incidence of Cataract as Major cause of Blindness

• Better standard of living, widespread insurance policies, increased expectations of patients reduced demand for free services

Reduced Demand for Free Services

•Other emerging areas of concern were diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, refraction correction

Demand for Other Areas of Eye Care

•Apart from salaries doctors were looking at research, publications, network enhancement and fame

Expectations of Doctors and Other Staff

• Newer hospitals were coming up with better infrastructure and providing higher salaries to doctorsCompetition

• Severe staff crunch, ratio of doctors to blind people was 1:20,000 – 1:250,000 in urban and rural areas

Continued Incidence of Blindness in India

How Aravind Eye Care has responded to these challenges?

Expansion Into Other Areas Of

Surgery• Aravind Eye Care started to focus on other types of surgeries than only cataract; laser and LASIK was now 20% of surgeries

Reduction In Eye Camps

• Number of eye camps reduced while their type diversified to encompass the newer forms of diseases increased

Outreach Activities

• Aravind Eye Care established network of vision centers, community eye clinics and included school children too

AMECS• Aravind Eye

Care collaborated with other hospitals for training and development through the Aravind Managed Eye Care Services (AMECS)

Upgrading of Facilities• While still

catering to the poorer sections of society Aravind Eye Care is upgrading facilities to meet increasing patient expectations

Emphasis on Research

• Research into new developing areas was expounded not only to better serve patients but also to give a chance to doctors for exploration

How the management is trying to move closer towards achieving the company’s mission?• Strategy to achieve

basic mission of eradicating blindness to be a mix of input - output and resource based models

• Priority on Innovation• Tackling other

diseases like diabetes, glaucoma apart from cataract

• Community Centers and Vision Centers

• Development of force of competent doctors and staff through training, knowledge mgt and empowerment

• Culture an important aspect to consider while expanding in other states of India as well as globally

Focus on Basic

Vision of AECS

Focus on Directional

Growth

Focus on Resolving HR Issues

Focus on Geographic Expansion

Recommendations

Make the AECS model more sustainable by moving away from family backed business management to a more efficiency focused management without diluting the basic mission

Make the AECS model more scalable by collaborations and partnerships with big hospital chains for urban penetration and local grassroots levels clubs and panchayats for rural penetration

Have more local eye check up camps held through these collaborations; convert check ups into hospital treatment and maintain all year round turnout of patients instead of seasonal camp focused turnouts

Provide doctors more incentive by providing job satisfaction, career growth and opportunity at research; provide proper training and development to the support staff to create a capable work force