This one is a follow-up article for my earlier blog: KIMS Hospitals’ Strategic Partnership with Wipro GE HealthCare: Driving Growth and MedTech Innovation. This can be termed a major development in the healthcare and medical technology sector in India. KIMS Hospitals has signed a ₹700 crore MoU with Wipro GE Healthcare. Through this strategic partnership, Wipro GE will provide an integrated end-to-end range of MedTech devices to KIMS Hospitals. This collaboration, though fruitful in a number of aspects operationally and financially for KIMS, also raises certain concerns with respect to the overall effect on the Indian MedTech landscape in terms of monopolization and stifling of domestic innovation. This article will discuss the implications that this partnership may bring about—a review from both sides’ point of view.

The Strategic Value of the KIMS-Wipro GE Partnership

  1. Comprehensive End-to-End MedTech Solutioning: Approach

Probably the biggest advantage of this tie-up for KIMS Hospitals is that the services offered range from mere procurement of medical equipment to their replacements and timely maintenance services. This can be very holistic in helping KIMS streamline its operations because healthcare institutions often find it cumbersome to maintain medical equipment across disparate locations. In return, this agreement secures the long-term reliability and efficiency of the equipment at KIMS and provides a globally recognized player like Wipro GE Healthcare as a strategic partner that could lead to the betterment of patient care and operational stability. In the highly critical healthcare sector, timely servicing and replacements are of utmost importance because any delay in repairing equipment or unavailability of replacements can lead to poor patient care services and organizational inefficiencies. Through this partnership, KIMS will gain access to the strong supply chain and service network of Wipro GE Healthcare to ensure all its medical devices continue to function and stay updated toward the latest technologies.

  • Scalability to Expand KIMS Hospitals 

KIMS Hospitals are fast expanding, and this scaling up automatically calls for a scalable solution for its medical equipment procurement and management. In other words, with the expansion of the network of hospitals, there is the pressing requirement of creating standardized use of medical technology across various locations for quality care. Having an established pan-India presence, Wipro GE Healthcare thus offers KIMS efficiency in scaling across different geographies. This enables KIMS to maintain a uniform standard of care, reduce procurement complexities, and smoothen its operational costs.

The partnership also brings speed and efficiency into the procurement process: the deep local supply chain of Wipro GE ensures faster access to medical devices and avoids delays on account of complex import processes or supply shortages. This is an important consideration for KIMS, as there’s a distinct possibility that delay in the equipping of new facilities or maintenance of existing ones would slow down its expansion plans.

  • Standardization and Efficiency 

Standardization is one of the major advantages of this collaboration. In a health sector where various types of equipment are being provided by different vendors, standardization of medical devices across locations is a challenge. Inconsistencies in equipment functionality or its maintenance may lead to operational inefficiencies, difficulty in training staff, and inconsistencies in patient outcomes. This is where Wipro GE Healthcare can help KIMS implement a standardized approach toward medical technology across all locations.

The result of this is simplified training of staff, reduced risks of errors, and consequently enhanced efficiency.

One will also expect efficiency gains with regard to a reduction in the downtime of equipment. Where one vendor is responsible for procurement, service, and maintenance, there is less room for coordination delays. In turn, this will ensure continuity of care at KIMS Hospitals without breaks due to malfunctioning or breakdown of equipment.

The Negative Side: Fears of Monopolization and Stifling Indian Innovation

  1. Monopolization of Indian MedTech Market

While this advantage of the partnership is in itself for KIMS, there are bigger implications for the Indian MedTech industry. Wipro GE is a global player and, as such, probably would be increasing its influence in the India healthcare market that may lead to monopolistic tendencies. This, in turn, can help Wipro GE reduce some competition from other domestic and international MedTech players by signing exclusive agreements with large hospital chains like KIMS. This may lead to an uneven playing field, thereby limiting the choices of healthcare providers with regards to sourcing equipment.

Besides, monopolistic practices could enhance the costs in health care. In the case of Wipro GE gaining a strategic lead in providing MedTech devices to Indian states, the consequence would be increased pricing power, increasing the cost of medical equipment. These increased costs may then be passed on to healthcare providers like KIMS and eventually may trickle down to the patients. This factor therefore could further aggravate the problem of health care affordability in a country like India.

  • Impact on the ‘Make in India’ Initiative

The ‘Make in India’ initiative by the Indian government, as related to the promotion of local innovation and manufacturing in this sector, among others, might be seriously undermined if partnerships such as these between KIMS and Wipro GE Health Care reduce demand for locally manufactured medical devices. Large networks like KIMS are going to foreign companies for these needs in medical technology, probably at the cost of their partner domestic MedTech companies’ competitiveness. This will lead to a foreign exchange loss with the increased import of medical devices. Besides that, the non-demand of indigenous medical technology may further throttle innovation in the MedTech industry of India. The local players cannot scale up their operations or invest in R&D as they cannot compete with global giants such as Wipro GE.

  • Increased Health Care Costs

It will lead to higher, more expensive healthcare over the long run and create dependence upon one global MedTech provider. Monopolistic behaviour tends to drive up prices over a period of time, and with one vendor dominating the market, there is less reason to be concerned about competitive pricing. Given the expansion at KIMS Hospitals and their designs for using Wipro GE’s technology even more in the future, they are apt to pay higher dollars that must be spent for procurement and servicing of equipment and will impact operational costs. This will also increase patient care because health care providers might have to adjust the price structure of medical equipment that raises their cost. This, in turn, increases the expenses related to healthcare on the part of a patient and further burdens an already strained healthcare system.

Conclusion: Balancing Growth and Innovation

In all, this partnership between KIMS Hospitals and Wipro GE Healthcare holds great promise for innovation and operational efficiency across KIMS’s fast-expanding network. But every such strategic partnership does have its own set of possible pitfalls. To that end, while KIMS gains by having standardized, scalable, and efficient MedTech solutions, the greater implication for the Indian MedTech industry cannot be lost on anyone. As the health sector continues to evolve, a proper model of policy that balances global partnerships with domestic innovation is required. Policymakers and healthcare providers must work in concert to assure that such collaborations do not come at the cost of stifling local innovation or increasing healthcare costs for patients.

Dr. Prahlada N.B
MBBS (JJMMC), MS (PGIMER, Chandigarh). 
MBA (BITS, Pilani), MHA, 
Executive Programme in Strategic Management (IIM, Lucknow)
Senior Management Programme in Healthcare Management (IIM, Kozhikode)
Postgraduate Certificate in Technology Leadership and Innovation (MIT, USA)
Advanced Certificate in AI for Digital Health and Imaging Program (IISc, Bengaluru). 

Senior Professor and former Head, 
Department of ENT-Head & Neck Surgery, Skull Base Surgery, Cochlear Implant Surgery. 
Basaveshwara Medical College & Hospital, Chitradurga, Karnataka, India. 

My Vision: I don’t want to be a genius.  I want to be a person with a bundle of experience. 

My Mission: Help others achieve their life’s objectives in my presence or absence!

My Values:  Creating value for others. 

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