Sometime back I was invited to moderate a  panel discussion on the needs for the health care industry. There were about a hundred doctors and health care administrators present in the room,from both government and private hospitals. No sooner had the discussions started than one point was abundantly clear.

We were talking about two different sectors, not one.

The public and private sectors were completely different; as different as chalk and cheese in their objectives, their outlook and their objectives. Let me take some examples of this difference. In taking these examples, I am not making any judgment about one against the other. I am just highlighting the differences. Besides, I have relatives and good friends on both sides.

The single biggest concern of the government sector was in managing the huge crowd of patients that was coming to them; to ensure that each patient got the required care and advice with a minimum of waiting. On the other hand, the key concern of the private sector was Quality of care and support services, including work flow.

One of the points we discussed there was about hospital automation. The private sector placed automation fairly high up in the list of things to do and identified patient records and and billing as the key objectives of any automation attempt. The public sector was clear that automation was not one of their key priorities, possibly because non of the available automation solutions addressed their needs of handling their patient volumes.

Similarly, for the public sector more emphasis was on maximizing the utilization of existing equipment than in  getting the latest equipment, while for the private sector, having the latest equipment was a key need and market differentiator.

I could go on and on. But it was abundantly clear that any one wanting to work with or in the health care industry across both public and private sectors will have to keep this key difference in mind if they want to be successful.