Bengaluru based SuVitas launches city’s first transition care facility, to raise Rs 15 Cr for expansion

Bengaluru: Completing the largely existent care gap between hospitals and home, SuVitas Holistic Healthcare has launched Bengaluru’s first dedicated transition care facility in Domlur on 11th July.

Despite having one of the fastest growing healthcare ecosystems of the country with improved tertiary care hospitals, Bengaluru has been consistently falling short in providing quality follow up care for the effective management of critical ailments. Filling this need gap, the pioneers of transitional care in India, SuVitas brings to the startup city a 60 bed post hospitalization rehabilitation center with specialized programmes for stroke, head injuries, spinal cord injuries, hip-knee replacements and post cardiac procedures.

Shedding light on SuVitas’ aggressive expansion plans, Mr Sateesh Andra, Founder and Board Director, SuVitas said, “Post-acute care is gaining greater relevance in today’s value-based care world. The growing base of non-local patients, increasing demand for long-term quality care for neuro cases, nuclear family culture and the flourishing medical tourism industry can significantly scale up the growth of segment. With transition care expected to grow to a 10,000 bed requirement in the near future, we expect SuVitas to emerge as an indisputable leader in the category.”

Dr Harish Kalathil, Director, Operations, SuVitas confirmed the brand is ramping up its expansion plans and is looking at raising an expansion capital of Rs 15 Cr for launching two more centers in Mumbai and Chennai within 18 month’s time. He added, “We are glad the medical circles have recognized the integral role played by SuVitas in completing the care continuum over the past few years. In our second stage of expansion, we are looking at raising an additional VC funding to expand our presence to eight cities including Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Kochi and Coimbatore among others.”

Post undergoing prolonged critical care, a patient needn’t be fully recovered to go home and will require skilled nursing care and regular physiotherapy, besides proper nutrition and emotional support. When patients go though transition care before going home, there is improved independence and functional outcomes thereby enabling accelerated and empowered recovery along with enhanced quality of life.

As per statistics, Bengaluru has only 2500 ICUs in the private sector. This is way less than the required number to support the rising incidences of strokes, road accidents, spine injuries and total knee replacements reported annually in the city. Dr Vijay, Director, New Initiatives, SuVitas remarked, “Considering the shortage of ICU beds in the city, insufficient trained rehab professionals and financial challenges to setup more critical care facilities, there is tremendous need for effective utilization of critical care services and ICU setups through transition care.”

Transition care serves a patient’s needs at 1/3rd cost of a hospital and 1/10th cost of critical care management and is therefore considered to be an affordable value addition to improve one’s QALY (Quality Adjusted Life Years).

Since its launch in Hyderabad in 2015, SuVitas has brought together protocol-oriented personalized care plan in a home-like relaxing environment through a multidisciplinary rehabilitation team of doctors comprising of physicians, skilled nurses, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, clinical psychologists and dietitians.

With an impressive year on year growth rate, SuVitas reported a revenue growth of 140 percent during the FY 2016 to FY 2017 and 50 percent from FY 2017 to FY 2018.

Highlighting the niche SuVitas has been able to create overcoming existing challenges in the industry, Dr Ramesh Byrapeni, an interventional cardiologist and Founder, Board of Director SuVitas said, “While transition care is considered equally important to mainstream medicine in developed economies, India is gradually waking up to its necessity. The rise in hospital-acquired infections and re-admissions in hospitals along with inefficient utilization of the critical care facilities have triggered the need to improve patient outcomes by offering to continue care through inpatient rehabilitation.”