China Health Care: The Land of Opportunity
August 30th, 2009 by Kent KedlAudio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
In a country this big there are plenty of sick people. Combine hundreds of millions of sick people, with less than 1,200 hospitals capable of providing comprehensive care, by that I mean best physicians, technicians, and staffing, which are called Grade 3 hosptials, and you have the world’s largest waiting room.
Allow me to describe this potential process. Man has pain in groin and suspects it’s a hernia. He travels a couple of hours to nearest Grade 3 hospital in Shanghai, primarily because he has little faith in a Grade 2 hospital nearby and there are no real places that a Westerner would recognize as a primary care clinic in China. He waits a day in Shanghai to see a physician, if he is lucky, who confirms his suspicions and recommends surgery. Unfortunately no beds are available which means waiting in a nearby hotel – that’s right, hotel stays and hernias go together here in China’s health care system, until a bed opens up.
Can you feel his pain? Yes I believe you can. My friends, pain like that can only produce opportunities for business here in China’s vast and emerging health care market. But where exactly do you say are those opportunities? Let’s start at a level down from that Grade 3 facility where the bulk of patients can be served.
We have seen most of the opportunity in the 6,500 Grade 2 hospitals across the country. That is where many of those people in waiting rooms in Grade 3 hospitals will find their cures by improving the quality of care at hospitals usually closer to their homes and with greater distribution across the country. After extensive research, we have found that this level of hospital will receive more government funds for improvement and greater flexibility to incorporate private sector principles in their operations.
The specific opportunity is for medical device and IT companies to provide equipment and software, for better trained physician groups to practice, and for investors to add to the infusion of Chinese investment in healthcare, nearly $125 billion government funds over the next 3 years. That’s an opportunity. The full transcript of this podcast which includes a greater description of the hospital structure in China is available here.
August 31st, 2009 at 2:30 am
Twitter Comment
China Health Care: The Land of Opportunity” [link to post] #prosthology #dentist #medical #health #dentist_tech #news
– Posted using Chat Catcher
December 1st, 2009 at 6:57 am
[...] greater appeal in the China merger and acquisition market, and a high demand for understanding the China health care market which is going through a health care reform. Recent episodes over the last two months have focused [...]