Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category

Maternova: India’s maternity hospital chain for lower-income families

Tuesday, July 28th, 2009

LifeSpring is a network of Maternity and Child Healthcare hospitals that provide vital reproductive and pediatric healthcare to low and lower-middle income people in urban and peri-urban areas, with a focus on delivering high quality, low-cost services to women and children in slum areas. This is a joint venture between Acumen Fund and Hindustan Latex Limited, a public sector company in India. Its model rests on building a chain of 30 small hospitals (20-25 beds) across India. The rates charged by LifeSpring Hospitals for general ward patients are less than one-third the market rate for normal deliveries and half the rate for caesarian deliveries. Each hospital has the capacity to serve nearly 10,000 low-income patients every year. LifeSpring also expects to provide outpatient services to more than a million people over five years. By improving patient outreach and the quality of care available, LifeSpring’s goal is to significantly increase hospital-supervised deliveries and to reduce maternal and child mortality and morbidity rates in the communities that it serves.

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Sreemantham ceremony

Saturday, July 11th, 2009

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Pic is of the Dr’s talk at the ceremony                                                                      The U.S. volunteers on the top row, and the

LifeSpring marketing team on the bottom row,

me, Sukriti, Sudha and Tricia

Today I co-managed a big marketing event at the newest LifeSpring Hospital that opened just 10 days ago.  The event was hosted in the hospital and it was the hospital’s debut event to the community. The event was a community health camp and a Sreemantham ceremony.  Sreemantham, is a Hindu ceremony, like a bridal shower, that is hosted for pregnant women in their 7th or 9th month of pregnancy.   A large free community event, such as a public bridal shower and health camp are a great way for the LifeSpring to give prospective customers  a preview of their services.  At the health camp LifeSpring offers free patient consultations, a health talk, as well as free medicine.  This camp was particularly special because we had a group of 6 U.S. volunteers that helped us market the event to the community this past week.  It was also the first time LifeSpring had hosted a Sreemantham ceremony.  I planned out the camp and Sreemantham event and created a marketing plan for it.  I also was in charge of managing the volunteers for the week, which was fun. We tried some new marketing tactics, working with government health workers to spead word about the event. It was a huge success!  Typically a health camp enables the hospital to identify 10-15 prospective customers.  At this event we identified 43 new  pregnant women in the community near the hospital.  Women came with their children and mothers and mother-in-laws–an all women event, in a lot of ways similar to a bridal shower.  The new hospital had been very empty during its first 10 days.  It was so exciting to see the hospital over-flowing with people today.  Our marketing tactics worked, and the event has helped LifeSpring identify a lot of new patients, who will help to cover the hospital’s overhead as the hospital builds its patient base.  I’m absolutely exhausted as I was running around all day directing things, but I feel really happy that I’ve successfully carried out this event and have helped bring a lot of new customers to LifeSpring’s newest hospital!

Celebrating Mother’s Day at LifeSpring Hospital

Saturday, May 17th, 2008

To celebrate Mother’s Day, LifeSpring Hospital held its first health fair last Sunday, providing free check-ups, health education, and fun activities to local women and their families.  The women’s and children’s hospital was decked out with Mother’s Day signs, balloons, and streamers, which matched well with all the smiles from our staff and customers.

We provided free vaccinations to children, as well as free ante-natal checkups to mothers-to-be.  Upstairs, our nurses and outreach workers manned the health fair, which consisted of general check-ups, health education around women’s health issues (including maternity and diabetes), and children’s games.

By far, the biggest hit of the event was the “portrait studio” and the free family pictures we provided our guests.  John (aka photographer extraordinaire) gave a preview of this in the previous blog entry.  Passionate volunteers were out in full force, taking family photographs, being on baby smile patrol, printing pictures, and making sure everyone was having fun (Thank you Sarah, John, Tyler, Eleonora, Theresa, and Aparna!)

While we tend to take baby pictures for granted, these are beyond the reach for many of LifeSpring’s customers.  I’m sure these pictures will be prominently displayed in their homes for years to come.  With the LifeSpring logo attached to them, this is an example of a marketing initiative that reinforces the LifeSpring brand and delights our customers.  With over 500 photographs taken, that’s a lot of smiles!

Change Makers: LifeSpring Hospitals

Sunday, July 15th, 2007

Define the innovation

LifeSpring hospitals are a chain of small sized private hospitals providing services to its customers which are : (a) Efficient (because of better management system/processes) (b) Fair & affordable Price of services ( no ambiguity/surprises in the prices of the services) (c) Better Outcome (because of focus on clinical quality) (d) Personalized service (because we treat our “patients” as customers/guests and not as patients.) LifeSpring hospitals primary customers are women from the working poor class.

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