Date:29/09/2005 URL: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/09/29/stories/2005092900951900.htm

Back Metropolis ties up with UAE hospital for lab outsourcing

L.N. Revathy

Coimbatore , Sept. 28

LABORATORY testing and diagnostic services outsourcing is set to become a big business in India.

"For hospitals in the UK and the US, it is cheaper to outsource laboratory and diagnostic tests to India. The prevailing rates there are ten times more compared to our charges. The situation is the same in West Asia too," says the Managing Director of Metropolis Health Services (India) Private Ltd, Dr G.S.K. Velu.

Metropolis has already tied-up with Gulf Medical College Hospital in the UAE. It is in talks with a consortium of hospitals in the US, the NHS (National Health Services) in the UK, and in India, too.

"We are doing a pilot test for the NHS," he told Business Line. (The National Health Services (NHS), UK, has indicated that the estimated volumes that could be outsourced could exceed one million samples.)

Metropolis expects at least 100 samples for testing from each partner every day.

Dr Velu said the Centre of Excellence at Mumbai could do 1,500 diagnostic tests under one roof, and a good number of hospitals in the vicinity and patients from different places handed over the samples and get the test result over the Net.

The domestic healthcare industry, according to a study, has been estimated at over Rs 4,000 crore, and the diagnostic and laboratory testing business is said to be growing at a compounded annual rate of 25 per cent.

Though there are over 25,000 path labs in the country, most are either ill-equipped or are not professionally manned. "Accuracy of test result and the turn around time is very critical. The mushrooming growth of path labs and their eventual failure in meeting international specification is bound to affect business opportunities," he said.

He added that Metropolis has over the years emerged as a referral centre for a wide range of medical speciality tests, catering to over 1,000 laboratories and hospitals in the country.

It has three levels of labs — Centre of Excellence (high-end), secondary labs and primary labs or collection centres, established on the basis of a market survey.