In Conversation
with Ramneet
Global research estimates that 50% of the humans die from either cancer or heart disease globally. For patients who have just been diagnosed, external help becomes highly critical to solicit information, advice and care. Preferred Global Health (PGH) is a global patient organization that provides the best possible outcome for patients, and their immediate family, when diagnosed with cancer or cardiovascular disease by providing diagnosis, treatment planning development, and treatment for critical illnesses by world leading experts at the top 1% of hospitals in the USA. PGH has a track record of over 20 years coordinating international patients and delivering superior results for patients.
Here’s an excerpt of my recent conversation with Mr Ramneet Walia, CEO Asia for PGH based in Hong Kong.
What is PGH and what is your business model?
Ramneet: Having lost close friends, the founders of PGH realised the challenges of receiving treatment and medical support services locally. Hence the idea of a patient services support model evolved that can provide world-class, yet affordable advice, information & treatment for cancer and heart disease to patients who either have lost all hope or are faced with a daunting medical condition.
We are a global patient care organization, successfully in over 20 years of operation. We embed our services within the product of an insurer or a financial institution. For example at HSBC, they offer PGH services as a benefit to all premier and advance segment customers.
According to you, how relevant are the patient care organizations in today’s context?
Ramneet: Very significant. In the case of cancer and heart disease conditions, we have observed that preventable medical errors can be huge starting from diagnosis to treatment to surgery. Approximately 20-25% of all patients experience preventable medical errors.
This also means that the choice of a treatment can broadly differ and will certainly influence the eventual outcome. This is where the patient care organizations become important to provide support beyond primary care – visualise having someone who can help to connect with the best of medical professionals, who can advise on the latest cure/treatment available across the globe. We mainly help to prevent medical errors by advising on the right choice of treatment, providing advice on the right specialists and best hospitals who can manage locally – all being provided by the best medical professionals we have at PGH.
How can preventable medical errors be reduced for patients?
Ramneet: There are two main areas of focus for that. One is volume. We are a 7 million population in HK, the largest and the best cancer hospital could have a few thousands cancer patients annually. At the same time, Dana Farber Cancer institute in Boston is running for 150 years and has 330,000 cancer patients a year. So that’s the kind of volumes that they are managing. That’s why their preventable medical errors reduce. And second reason is Research & Development. 80% of world’s cancer research is only done through US. That is why the protocols on managing a particular condition is very different.
How do you see healthcare facilities transforming and what role do insurers play in this? Is there something insurers can do better?
Ramneet: Prior to PGH, I played various stints with Insurers for 20 years. Insurers have done very well in terms of health financial protection. Insurers and healthcare providers have rapidly collaborated to provide efficiency through third-party administrators i.e. cashless facilities, clinic visit services on mobile apps, etc.
However, specialized patient protection services have been a neglected area. For example, Dementia disease has a very different need to manage. Dementia patients need support on managing their banking finances, planning for the estate transfers etc. I see Insurers moving from being a payer to partner, where a customer’s journey is being mapped and new specialised services are taking shape. I bet “Specialisation with Customisation” will be the new mantra.
Do you think “Fraud Waste Abuse” can be controlled with organization like yours?
Ramneet: We are a neutral player in the health care space. We don’t take any incentives from insurers or from hospitals, we stick to the side of the patient. Our advice is only about improving patient’s outcome rather than incentives or taking any side of the ecosystem. Honestly, fraud happens from financial point of view, not from the intentional point of view to survive.
What are your main challenges at PGH currently?
Ramneet: Awareness of our model! As we are a unique & specialised service provider awareness of our services are pretty low. Another challenge is established players in the field healthcare – insurers & medical providers – are willing to bring initiatives with small changes. It has come to a level where trivial things are the only differentiator and for us the challenge is now to step up the game. The other challenge I think is to cascade our services from a very high net-worth to a mass market.
What’s your view on Health Tech? Is it relevant in your space?
Ramneet: In disease management, technology plays a huge role. To give an example, for chemotherapy, can we do immunization which is non-invasive and has lesser risk? Now, this is the side of technology we work on from disease management point of view.
What makes PGH different from other health service providers specialising in critical illness disease management ?
While other providers are focused on high tech, low touch invisible doctors or concierge services, PGH focuses on high touch with the top specialists in their field, supported by personal care management to arrive at informed decisions for the patient, providing to the patient care rather than case management. Other providers are also tied to doctors or hospitals while PGH is independent from both with over 20+ years of medical relationships built in the heart of Boston where all the leading, cutting-edge centres of medical innovation and practice occurs. PGH also has a large focus on the prevention of medical errors and has a medical board of experts with distinguished careers, at the forefront of hospital departments and multidisciplinary research.
What benefits do you want your customers to experience?
Ramneet: Survival. We don’t claim that we will make every customer survive. But in 20 years we haven’t lost a life, so that’s the kind of standard we are trying to maintain.