Low cost healthcare delivery (LCHD) has progressed considerably in India. National Rural Health
Mission’s (NRHM) reforms have led to improvements in key health indicators such as institutional
deliveries, out-patient cases, complete immunization, availability of diagnostic and family welfare services
and disease control programmes. However, the country’s healthcare market continues to face challenges
of affordability, availability, and quality. Also, pertinent questions still persist:
• Can LCHD, both, create impact and achieve financial sustainability?
• Has India witnessed innovations in its LCHD business models which can help achieve these
objectives?
While many businesses have been established in the LCHD space, few have been able to tackle and
address its issues related to accessibility, affordability, viability or scalability. At the Sankalp Unconvention
Summit 2014, the Investment Banking team of Intellecap hosted a panel session along with Swasti to
understand the current landscape of market based approaches for affordable healthcare delivery. The
panel also discussed the potential of these market based approaches to create impact while achieving
scalability and financial sustainability. The conversation further explored the scope of innovation in the
existing delivery methods to ensure quality affordable health care at scale.
This report, a distillation of contributions from the panel discussion, provides an overview of the realities
and challenges of LCHD models and seeks to identify enablers that can change the LCHD landscape.
