Book Review - Infinite Vision

Book Review - Infinite Vision
How Aravind became the world's greatest business case for compassion
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I had heard a lot about Aravind Eye Care Hospital (Madurai) but never knew about what their contribution to Eye care in India and the world was until I saw this book and decided to buy and read it.

The authors have done a fantastic job to not only introduce us to the now very popular Aravind model of Eye care ( Low cost , high volume and high value model) but also described in detail of how this whole model evolved over a period of more than 3 decades.

The model which its founder Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy started ( in the late 70s in Madurai) works on the main principles of Integrating innovation with empathy, business principles with service and outer transformation with inner change. At a time of his life after retiring from active Govt service Dr V ( as he was popularly known in the medical circles) decided to start of this 11 bed eye care nursing home in Madurai , the underlying spirit of service was at the core of this project. Realizing that this low cost model for the poor would not take him to far to achieve his mission of curing avoidable blindness, Dr V then used the cross subsidy model where in patients who want to pay can pay an amount their choice , patients who could pay market rates paid it and poor patients who could not afford it were treated free . This model has succeeded and survived for the last many decades and is still going strong at Aravind Eye care till this date.

The whole philosophy of this venture was to reach out to maximum no of poor people and cure avoidable blindness (cataract) and not to turn away anyone who cannot afford treatment. Dr V and his team ( many of whom were his family members ) have successfully used assembly line operation methods even in hospital management which has helped them provide affordable eye care at a fraction of the cost compared to other hospitals in India and the west. A laser like focus on cost, standardized processes, metrics and feedback have helped Aravind to cut cost of an typical cataract surgery and also hugely impacted productivity , a typical doctor at Aravind does about 2000 cataract surgeries a year while the national average is about 400.

The spotlight on Aravind and how it has managed to scale this socially committed business operation to multiple cities across Tamilnadu and build the largest eye care hospital chain is worth understanding.

Dr V who had been influenced a lot by Sri Aurobindo ( hospital named after him Aravind is another name for Aurobindo ) his constant questioning about life and its purpose and all his teaching seem to be the corner stone while this organization was being built.

To get some statistics Aravind in all its centers put together see 7500 patients daily, does about 900 eye surgeries daily ( cataract glaucoma etc etc) 5-6 out reach camps in village are done daily , 500-600 tele-medicine cases daily, 7000 Intraocular lenses produced at their lens manufacturing facility daily.

Aravind’s journey from an eye care hospital to a manufcaturer of Intraocular lenses to Ophthalmology medicines and a few Ophthalmology equipment and opening of Aravind Training institute ( trains doctors and other hospitals to help them learn and implement Aravind model in their country ) is well documented . Aravind till this day trains doctors, nurses and support staff from various countries in Africa and Asia, they learn about the Aravind model and how to replicate the same back home.

All this has bought them a lot of praise some of which are the Padma Shri for its founder Dr Govindappa Venkataswamy numerous awards and grants from leading social impact funds and organizations like Acumen, Skool, Schwab and Gates Foundation. Innumerable no of business schools have included this case study in their MBA programs including the most famous of them Harvard.

Succession planning, scalability model like in any organization is a challenge and Aravind is no different, what started of as business based on compassion today's stands at the crossroads with the new generation facing the dilemma of the road ahead. With increasing competition w and growing materialism the generation now at the helm face this challenge on how to retain the founding principles when this institute was started.

An excellent read, not only to understand the challenges faced in delivery of low cost eye care but also understand and reflect upon why businesses need to be more compassionate in their outlook.