gE Blog Series: Global Healthcare Part 5 - Outsourcing Healthcare Services

Given the myriad of groundbreaking new biotechnology products coupled with accelerating costs of research, development, manufacturing, and regulatory mandates, the healthcare industry today finds itself at a crossroads. Consumers, hospitals, and governments are petitioning for fairly priced goods and services without compromising top-tier quality or extending risk exposure. However, the narrowing global economic environment is persuading market-leading manufactures to reevaluate not only their value chain processing, but also their premium pricing models. Under the aforementioned conditions, it is often in the best interest of suppliers, consumers, and shareholders to empower profit maximization by outsourcing core operational services for efficiency.

According to a study by the Everest Group, the global healthcare outsourcing market is growing at a CAGR of 12% and “may reach a value of $68 billion by 2020.”  Services outsourced around the world range from drug production to clinical trials management to data infrastructure management.  India is known as the pioneer for the Business Processing Outsourcing (BPO) revolution.  The Big Data analytics capabilities being used by Indian firms have helped clients prioritize medical services, minimize hiring and training costs, and share risk. And risk does exist.  Initially, pre-contract audits are recommended, sufficient patient security measures must be taken, and control process must be streamlined proficiently.

Nonetheless, an aggregate of $14 billion has been saved by United States clinics in 2014 alone Institutes can significantly decrease their administrative costs without surrendering value to create effective, efficient, and affordable healthcare services.  And using the Micro-Macro argument, hospitals developing exceptional processes internally will benefit the community both socially and economically.