A healthcare provider is a person or a company that provides a healthcare service to you so basically, the healthcare provider takes care of you. The term "healthcare provider" is sometimes incorrectly used to refer to a health insurance plan, but health insurance is different from health care.

Vikas Katoch, COO, Right Health is a qualified and experienced senior professional with over 1.5 decades of experience in handling & building up teams and finance processes and new setups.

Right Health is the largest and fastest-growing value healthcare organization in the UAE, and the pioneer of a movement to provide quality, affordable, and accessible healthcare to the working-class population. In line with the goal of the National Agenda of the UAE Vision 2021 to establish a world-class healthcare system accessible to all, the organization aims to deliver quality healthcare with four core objectives – prevention, efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation.

Automation delivering the Health care

Vikas shares his thoughts on experiencing automation in the healthcare industry and what he thinks of the Affordable Health Care tag that most healthcare startups are using as their USP today, “Automation in terms of delivering the care, and specifically the affordable care which Right Health is pretty much into from the beginning, we are the largest and fastest primary health care organization in the UAE, with 57 facilities across most of the Emirates. Now, in terms of automation, how I see it is that it was linked to just the IT process. So when I see the automation, let's say in the Right Health and in the industry here in the UAE, is pretty much basically how can we automate the tasks, automate the care by using the technology to increase the speed of the care, for example, a registration of the patients in terms of even primary care given to the patient by the doctors. In terms of record management of a patient or even, it is coupled with some of the other initiatives wherein you are handling your patient, irrespective of the position or the location he or she is in. It is coming coupled with a concept of telemedicine, which is not a new concept but is becoming the new normal in the UAE. Or it becomes, let's say automation in terms of robotic processes, which is not pretty much used so far. But I see it is coming in the healthcare industry. I've seen robots moving around and the pharmacy in the health care sector in the UAE. I've seen some of the robotic processes in health care in the OT’s also. But I think, specifically in affordable care, you need to get something extra; you need to provide some extra care to the people with some sort of automation. Now it can work with the digital dispensary, which we at Right Health are working on. So rather than deploying nurses, doctors, or staff, we are going to set up a clinic equipped with infrastructure, not just the telemedicine and we are providing care to the patient, and either they are coming to us or even if they are sitting in the remote areas, because very hard to reach to every patient. So that's how I see it. But I would say it's more of accessibility,” he says.

Transforming value-based healthcare

Vikas explains how Right Health is committed to transforming value-based healthcare and the future of healthcare, “Our aim when we started in 2017 was to touch 1.8 million lives by 2021 and we have already touched 1.6 million lives. So we are surpassing our aim by any means. Now coming to transforming value-based healthcare is that we want to provide our care at the doorstep of our working population, because even as per survey 77% of the population in the UAE belongs to the people who earn less than 7000 Dirhams, there are more so which you call it a lower middle-end population. So when you have that population, you can't survive without serving those populations, it is our duty to transform that value-based healthcare, like I said, by either automation, or by reaching to that clientele or the patient or working hand in hand with the insurer, which you call a B2B relationship, which is the new need of the hour and then this is in our delivery of the business wherein, you are not going to every patient, but you are tapping the insurance company, what is the requirement? Do you want to open a clinic in the extreme areas of Dubai or Abu Dhabi or any other Emirates? Do you want to provide extra care in certain areas? So anything which is predictable, we are doing wherein there is a high demand by government, by authorities or by insurance companies we are there, or wherein we are working with a partner hand in hand to transform that value preparation also so that we become a value healthcare provider to the insurance company directly and to the corporate. So, it's like a win-win situation for us, corporate insurance, and the patient wherein we are delivering the care at a lesser cost. That's what we are doing. So it's all basically, all in all, the effort of everyone as a whole ecosystem of healthcare,” he says.

Managing the operations during COVID was a headache

Vikas explains the challenges faced by Right health due to COVID, “Right Health aims to deliver quality health care with four core objectives, one is prevention, second, efficiency, the third is effectiveness and fourth innovation, so definitely, it was challenging for us as it is was for many other health care providers even across the world for the patients, corporates or payers. Now the most challenging part, rather than giving the service, was to take care of your own staffers because those are the frontline workers who are working for people. So that was the biggest challenge for us. Unfortunately, we had 70 people who got infected but fortunately, everyone is safe, everyone has come back to the office because those are the people who were serving the care. So that was the biggest block for us. The staff was very cooperative, we were always there for any health. Fortunately, or unfortunately, we didn't close our clinics, because that was the mandate given to us even by the regulations. But yes, in terms of prevention is the need, because if you go to any Western countries, primary health care is the only health care solution in terms of preventing the disease. Prevention can be there in terms of your health checkup, normal checkups plus the prevailing disease management, so that's what we are working on, either automatically or remotely. Managing the operations during COVID, with less manpower with more decisions was a big headache. But now I can see, the government has helped everyone, we are fortunate enough to sit in this country where everything was properly planned, deployed, and managed. So I believe we have surpassed that era we were in. Now, also it is there, but it has improved a lot, we are in a better place now. And for us every day is innovation, in terms of helping the patient to provide care at better costs at better efficiency,” he says.

Want to make this company the best-preferred provider

Vikas sheds light on the matter, “So what drives me more than anything, being a finance guy or a nonfinance guy is that I want to make this company the best-preferred provider in this region for primary health care. That's what I started working on when we started this company when there was no Right Health clinic or pharmacies or labs and now in the last two and a half years, we have made it to 58 clinics, our game, and my motivation is always to do something for the society, which is as overall, obviously, from the company side, we want to make Right  Health as the best health care organization, and most valuable brand and people should be proud to be associated with Right Health. So that's basically, the premier goal for me in the organization is to transform healthcare for the market,” he says.

(Edited by Rabia Mistry Mulla)