In 2019, Sakra World Hospital began offering ahome-care service to support discharged patients.
Staff members make visits to patients’ homes toperform nursing care, take blood samples, andoffer rehabilitation. In those activities, they makeuse of know-how developed in Japan to cope withthe country’s aging population.

DELIVERING SAFE,QUALITY MEDICAL CARE
FOR COMPREHENSIVE SUPPORT IN INDIAIn the city of Bengaluru in southern India, a Japanese-style
general hospital is leveraging its know-how to conquer
India’s medical-care challenges, demonstrating positiveresults. What approaches should be taken within flexible
and advanced medical care to meet the needs and matchthe realities of a rapidly growing emerging country?
Bengaluru in southern India
is a city that encapsulates the
dynamically growing India oftoday. While it is a modern citywith an intense concentration of
IT and biotech industries—notto mention its population of over
10 million—it also faces multiple
challenges, such as poverty andslow progress in the developmentof its social infrastructure. Witha growing economy and thelargest population in the world,

INDIA

the demand for quality in thefield of medical care across thecountry as a whole is also rising,but access to such services ismeager, with shortages of both
doctors and hospital beds. There
are also serious inequalities in thecountry’s medical care due partly
to the underdeveloped healthinsurance system.
Recent years have seen Japanesecompanies initiating activities
in India to address such issues.

in hospital management support
and offers home nursing services
in Japan, and Toyota Tsusho
Corporation, the trading arm ofthe Toyota Group.
The hospital now has some
1,400 new inpatients permonth, but when it was foundedin 2014, it initially faced amountain of challenges—fromthe establishment of an adequate
management system to thedevelopment of human resources.
ISHIDA Shiori of the hospitalmanagement division of Secom
Medical System said, “Whilelearning from scratch about
medical care in India, we havestrived to create a system thatprovides safe medicine.” By
practicing kaizen (the businessphilosophy of constantly reviewing

JAPANA leading pioneer in the fieldis Bengaluru’s Sakra World
Hospital, the first general hospitalin India to be run by Japanesemanagement. It has morethan 220 physicians providing
advanced acute care in over 35
specialist fields, including thoserelated to neurological disorders
and cardiovascular and digestive
diseases. It is operated by Secom
Medical System Co., Ltd., which,among other activities, engages

Top: Equipped with an emergency outpatient ward
and rehabilitation center, Sakra is located in the
Bellandur district of southeastern Bengaluru, where
IT companies are concentrated. In 2025 or 2026, asecond hospital is set to be established in a different
district of the city, offering advanced forms ofcare such as cancer treatment and comprehensive
health checkup services, among others.
Bottom: “Over the course of many years, Sakra
has cultivated an approach that emphasizes theequality of life. Thanks to that, some people,
confident in getting treated, traveled long
distances to the hospital during the COVID-19
pandemic. We want to continue to cherish that
culture,” said ISHIDA Shiori of the hospitalmanagement division of Secom Medical System.

Left: Sakra is partnered with Japanese hospitals thatprovide advanced medical care, and actively engages
in staff exchanges with them. According to Ishida,
Japanese doctors also have much to learn from Sakra,
thanks to its many doctors with experience inWestern countries, as well as its abundance andvariety of case studies.
Right: Making use of Japan’s nursing-education know-how, the hospital imparts not just nursing techniques
but also such other skills as those related to hospitality. Sakra has created a career path that promotes
excellent nurses to more important positions, which has improved their motivation and awareness.

operations to improve work
efficiency and safety) in allits departments, the hospital
upgraded the effectiveness ofmany of its operations—including
responses to nurse calls and waitingtimes in the hospital pharmacy—
and significantly enhanced theawareness of the staff.
Focus is also placed oninteraction with Japanese medicalinstitutions. Not only do doctors
actively conduct mutual visits andjoint case reviews, but selected
members of the nursing team also
visit Japanese hospitals to learn
about nursing operations. “Thistraining has had a significant
impact. The key to attracting
and developing excellent humanresources is the provision oflearning opportunities that money
cannot buy,” said Ishida.
While enhancing the qualityof medical care, the hospital also
aims to provide care to a broader
swath of the population. Nearly
50 of the 307 hospital beds are thesimple economy type, enhancing
accessibility for lower-income
patients. Amid the COVID-19
pandemic, more than 5,900 patients,
regardless of financial status, weretreated. “At first, there were some
who were strongly opposed tosuch an indiscriminate approach

to treatment. But the hospital’semphasis on the equality of all
human lives helped it to gain
the trust of the local people,”
said Ishida. The number ofpatients choosing the hospital has
continued to increase, even since
the pandemic’s containment.
Now, one future goal of thehospital is to build a systemproviding seamless care—fromconvalescent care following
hospital discharge to home medicalcare support—by establishingclinics and providing homecare services in the surrounding
communities. Ishida explainedthat“primarycareandpostoperative follow-ups will
be conducted at clinics or athome, and patients who needdetailed examinations or surgery
will be sent to Sakra. In Japan,
this is known as a ‘communitybased integrated care system,’but the concept itself has yet
to be introduced to India on anational scale.” Since 2019, Sakra
has been operating its first clinic
and offering home-care services.
Utilizing the experiences at Sakra
to build a system that meets theneeds of Indian society: such
efforts will surely constitute a
step toward a more secure andabundant future.