Wednesday, October 20, 2004
A healthy trip to India
[Chidanand Rajghatta, "Outsourcing blues? Have a heart!," The Times of India, 30 September 2004.]
When Greg Scandlen spoke at Flint Hills luncheons in Kansas recently, he mentioned the growing trend toward a global economy in health care. Along those lines, here is a great story about a man who travelled from the U.S. to India to undergo heart surgery - at a fraction of the cost:
India's great outsourcing debate with the United States may have just moved from software to 'heartware.'
Defeated by exorbitant health care costs in the United States, a North Carolina worker flew into New Delhi over the weekend for a heart surgery on the cheap.
Howard Staab was wheeled into the Operation Room at Escorts Heart Institute at 9 a.m. on Monday listening to "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou," with dhanyavaad written on his chest with a purple marker.
He was out in the Recovery Room by 3.30 p.m. with "every best case scenario plan implemented," according to his partner Maggi Grace. A team of doctors led by the well-known cardiologist Dr Naresh Trehan fixed a broken mitral valve in his heart.
The cost of the procedure and after care in India – less than $20,000, compared to the $200,000 Staab was asked to fork out in the US.
Although 'health tourism' and outsourcing of medical procedures has been on the horizon for some time, this is one of the first instances of an American worker seeking out India for high-end medical treatment.
"This is happening because of the prohibitive cost of health care in the US," Dr Vinay Malhotra, a Seattle cardiologist said in an interview while assessing the milestone event. "I don't see the medical profession here objecting to this, but if this becomes a trend, the insurance companies could well be up in arms."
According to Dr Malhotra, India is a relative newcomer to the healthcare tourism from the U.S. Americans have been trickling into specialized hospitals in Thailand and Singapore even as healthcare costs have been rising fast enough to cause cardiac arrests among the working class and senior citizens here.
[Chidanand Rajghatta, "Outsourcing blues? Have a heart!," The Times of India, 30 September 2004.]
When Greg Scandlen spoke at Flint Hills luncheons in Kansas recently, he mentioned the growing trend toward a global economy in health care. Along those lines, here is a great story about a man who travelled from the U.S. to India to undergo heart surgery - at a fraction of the cost:
India's great outsourcing debate with the United States may have just moved from software to 'heartware.'
Defeated by exorbitant health care costs in the United States, a North Carolina worker flew into New Delhi over the weekend for a heart surgery on the cheap.
Howard Staab was wheeled into the Operation Room at Escorts Heart Institute at 9 a.m. on Monday listening to "Oh Brother, Where Art Thou," with dhanyavaad written on his chest with a purple marker.
He was out in the Recovery Room by 3.30 p.m. with "every best case scenario plan implemented," according to his partner Maggi Grace. A team of doctors led by the well-known cardiologist Dr Naresh Trehan fixed a broken mitral valve in his heart.
The cost of the procedure and after care in India – less than $20,000, compared to the $200,000 Staab was asked to fork out in the US.
Although 'health tourism' and outsourcing of medical procedures has been on the horizon for some time, this is one of the first instances of an American worker seeking out India for high-end medical treatment.
"This is happening because of the prohibitive cost of health care in the US," Dr Vinay Malhotra, a Seattle cardiologist said in an interview while assessing the milestone event. "I don't see the medical profession here objecting to this, but if this becomes a trend, the insurance companies could well be up in arms."
According to Dr Malhotra, India is a relative newcomer to the healthcare tourism from the U.S. Americans have been trickling into specialized hospitals in Thailand and Singapore even as healthcare costs have been rising fast enough to cause cardiac arrests among the working class and senior citizens here.
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