Company Watch

ICRI Health to commence two PG diplomas by end 2008

Usha Sharma - Mumbai

India's healthcare sector has been growing rapidly and it is estimated that it will be worth $40 billion by 2012, according to a PriceWaterhouse Cooper report. To fill this gap between healthcare industry and availability of trained manpower, India's leading clinical research institute, Institute of Clinical Research, India (ICRI), ventured into the healthcare segment with the introduction of a two year MBA course in healthcare management. It is also planning to commence two separate post graduate courses for healthcare industry by the end of current year.

ICRI Health has planned to run a Post Graduate (PG) Diploma in Health Law and Post Graduate Diploma in Quality Management and Accreditation. It has set up committees of 10-15 industry representatives, who are designing the course and expect to finalise it in another two-three months. The experienced faculty will be drawn from industry and academia and will include doctors, legal consultants, etc. For the PG Diploma in Health Law, the company will be designing legal textbooks, encompassing 503 standards in 10 chapters. This will deal with issues related to accredited hospitals like quality of care, continuity of care, patient's rights to information, quality control mechanism and Human Resource Management policy.

M Srivastava, Director, ICRI Health said, "The government has acknowledged the hospital industry as an industry and in the near future many new hospitals will be coming up. Every hospital will require trained manpower for various segments in the hospital. To fill that future gap, we have already commenced our journey and hoping that we will be able to serve in a better way. We have asked experienced industry people to design the course and are hoping that by November- December 2008 we will be able to take applications for the batches." These features, according to Srivastava, make the course job oriented and in sync with industry needs.

In the initial stage, the company will run a batch of 40-50 students over weekends in its existing centres at Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Cochin. The course fee is yet to be finalised but normally it will be around Rs 1.5 lakh.

ICRI Health is a recently formed division of ICRI and a pioneer of allied healthcare education courses in India. The institute aims to be a world leader in scientific healthcare management education. Recently, it has also entered into a memorandum of understanding with the US-based Academy of Hospital Administration (AHA) for jointly conducting Hospital Operations Management and healthcare industry related courses. AHA has developed norms for accreditation of hospitals in India for National Accreditation Board for all hospitals, which has also been approved by ISQua and on the standards of Joint Commission International (JCI).

About further plans, Srivastava, said, "We are also planning have a PG diploma in Hospital Architecture, but it will take some more time for finalisation.

usha.sharma@expressindia.com