AHH to invest Rs 10 crore NICUs

Asia Healthcare Holdings (AHH), a healthcare investment platform backed by private equity fund TPG Growth, is planning to grow its recently launched specialised tech-powered neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) beds by pumping in Rs 10 crore in the next few years. NICUs provide care for sick or premature infants.

AHH, which is expanding its single specialty healthcare business, has a special focus on the neonatal health segment. “Our focus areas include oncology, women and children health and the implementation of tech in ICUs,” said Vishal Bali, Executive Chairman of AHH.

Within the neonatology segment, the Bengaluru-based and AHH-owned chain of women and childcare hospitals, Motherhood Hospitals, launched a remote patient monitoring system NICU Live in April. “NICU Live is a tech-driven system for remotely overseeing newborns. We perceive an opportunity to operate nearly 200 virtual-care beds within the neonatology field alone,” Bali said.

The system provides virtual neonatal care to newborns admitted or born in nursing homes and hospitals in semi-urban and rural areas. “Motherhood Hospitals has deployed its NICU Live initiative, which plans to cover 200 beds across the country and the company plans to deploy Rs 10 crore for it,” he added.

NICU Live is currently available in five locations in Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, and Haryana, and plans to enter Delhi NCR, Rewari (Haryana), UP, parts of Maharashtra, and north Karnataka. It brings down the cost of accessing a physical NICU, without compromising on the quality of care, and bridges the gap in the availability of specialists. Other disadvantages that it overcomes are the lack of full-time quality clinicians, absence of advanced nursing expertise, and poor management of records, which are addressed through the remote-monitoring system.

Bali said that while AHH is doing a lot of work in the obstetrics segment, the true essence of Motherhood lies in two specific areas: gynaecology and neonatology. “Presently, we operate the largest network of neonatology beds in the country. Across the Motherhood network in the present cities, we currently have approximately 300 beds, constituting the most extensive neonatology presence in the country. To date, we have successfully discharged over 35,000 babies from the NICUs at Motherhood,” he said. Business Today