Administrator
Coordinator, Emergency Services, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad (1999 To 2001)
Apollo Group of Hospitals had three facilities in Hyderabad including the Emergency Hospital mentioned above in different locations in the city. After having established the concept at Apollo Emergency Hospital, Dr.Prasad created similar infrastructure and services at the two other locations and created a network of three emergency rooms and 8 ambulances. The SUCCeSS of this network was evident from the first month of operations itself with a phenomenal growth in the number of people using this network. This network was covering a small part of the city and expansion meant more number of ambulances and emergency rooms. Other hospitals were not interested in joining the network as emergency medical services were considered to be avoidable and not viable financially. Not giving up Dr.Prasad created a whole new model of 'emergency clinic' which were low cost small facilities offering quality emergency care and approached Dr.Pratap C Reddy. Dr.Reddy immediately approved the investment and Dr.Prasad set up 5 more emergency rooms in the city. With this Hyderabad has a network of a emergency rooms and 20 ambulances. This was the first comprehensive emergency network in India and has become a model network for the country.
Director Emergency Services, Apollo Group of Hospitals (2001 To 2004)
The model established in Hyderabad was fine-tuned and Dr. Prasad was given the job of replicating it across the Apollo Group of Hospitals in India. Dr.Prasad worked on establishing the model cross different geographies and successfully implemented it in Chennai, Delhi, Kolkatta, Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Mysore, Pune Madurai, Kakinada etc. The network today operates about 150 ambulances and 60 emergency rooms in the year 2002 Dr.Prasad was instrumental in launching air ambulance services for the group. Apollo Group today does the highest number of air ambulances transfers in the country.
Vice President- Medical Services, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad (2003 To 2006)
During this period Dr. Prasad was responsible for operations, medical services and business development of Apollo facilities in Hyderabad. These facilities include.
- Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills: 350-bed tertiary care hospital
- Apollo Emergency Hospital, Hyderguda: 50-bed A & E Hospital
- Apollo Hospitals, Secunderabad: 80-bed secondary care hospital
- Apollo DRDO Hospitals, DRDO: 125-bed secondary care hospital
- Apollo Emergency Clinic at Kukatpally, Malakpet & Mehdipatnam
Dr.Prasad integrated all the units in Hyderabad to create a hub and spoke model of healthcare. This had a tremendous impact on the performance of both individual units and as a grOUP. This is the first hub and spoke model of healthcare in the private sector in the country. During this period Apollo Hospital at Secunderabad and DRDO were upgraded into tertiary care facilities Dr.Prasad led a team of committed young professional in re-engineer many process including performance management, marketing and sales, infection control and tariff structures. Hyderabad is amongst the most competitive healthcare markets in India, Dr.Prasad guided the team through a change management process which focused on service quality being a differentiator and premium tariffs for better service quality and clinical outcomes. This approach steered Apollo Hospitals away from the competition and created an exclusive place for itself within the market.
Chief Executive Officer, Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad (2006 To 2010)
As the Chief Executive Officer of Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad, Dr.Prasad was responsible for
- Apollo Hospitals, Jubilee Hills: 550-bed quaternary care hospital
- Apollo Emergency Hospital, Hyderguda: 175-bed A & E hospital
- Apollo Hospitals, Secunderabad: 150-bed tertiary care hospital
- Apollo DRDO Hospitals, DRDO: 125-bed tertiary care hospital
- Apollo Emergency Clinics at Kukatpally, Malakpet & Mehdipatnam
- Apollo Hospitals, Kakinada: 125-bed tertiary care hospital
- Reach Hospitals, Karimnagar: 125-bed tertiary care hospital
- Apollo Medical Center, Shamshabad Airport: 14-bed facility
- Apollo Gleneagles PET-CT Center, Hyderabad
Chief Executive Officer — Central Region of Apollo Hospitals, Group (2010 To 2015)
Dr.Prasad was also responsible for the hospitals located in Karnataka, Gujrath, Maharastra, Madhya Pradesh, Chattisgarh and Orissa in addition to the hospitals in Andhra Pradesh.
During this period Dr.Prasad has initiated a number of innovative programs. He led the Apollo Hospitals Jubilee Team towards Joint Commission International Accreditation. This is the first hospital in the region to receive the gold seal of quality in healthcare. In addition Apollo Hospitals also received a certificate of excellence for management of acute stroke, the first and only hospital outside USA to achieve the honor.
Dr.Prasad worked towards acquiring the 125 bedded loss making hospital in Kakinada and turning it into a profit making institute within 18 months of acquiring the facility.
A detailed plan for taking tertiary care beyond the large cities was drawn up by Dr.Prasad and the first hospital (Apollo Reach Hospitals, Karimnagar) was created within 6 months as a proof of concept. This hospital is now operational and has established its credentials within two months of operations.
Dr.Prasad provided the impetus to convert the Jubilee Hills facility into a Health City. This is the functional health city in Asia offering services across the healthcare spectrum including healthcare, education, research and medical innovation.
Since 2006 Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad has been adjudged as the best hospital in the region (Week Magazine) and been honored as the best hospital in the country for service excellence (Avaya Global Connect Awards, Modern Medicare Awards & Express Healthcare Awards). These awards vindicate the strategy adopted by Apollo Hospitals, Hyderabad — Service excellence and global benchmarking of clinical outcomes as the differentiators.
All through this period Dr.Prasad along with his team have been delivering a consistent growth of double digit growth in revenue and EBIDTA.
Group President for Apollo Hospitals Division (2015 To 2024)
Dr.Prasad initially worked towards standardizing the processes and systems across the hospitals division of Apollo Hospitals. This entailed creating SOP's for all the
processes and systems and automating them to ensure uniform adoption across the system. Once implemented this showed significant impact on patient satisfaction, revenue cycle management, cutting out wastage in the system, enhancing employee satisfaction levels and delivering greater value to all the stakeholders including investors.
Change has been a constant endevor and Dr.Prasad created an organization which was ready to adopt change and institute processes and systems which always kept the organization future ready. Digitalisation, clinical outcome dashboards, department wise performace dashboards, balanced score card for the organisations etc helped in creating a patient centric, performance focused organization.
This benefits of this approach was best seen during the covid pandemic. Protecting healthcare workers. Screening, testing, isolation, acute care, home care, rehabilitation, mental health, immunization and disease management systems were are run on a single unified protocol across the 74 Apollo Hospitals and subsidiaries.
This approach was dynamic, kept changing with the latest information that was available and communication channels between a large group of stakeholders were open 24 x 7. There was never a shortage of medications, consumables or vaccines for the Apollo system throughout the pandemic and the strength and resilience of the system created by Dr.Prasad was clearly evident.
Even during and after the pandemic, despite all the difficulties cash flows and margins were sustained and a cursory view of the balance sheets would demonstrate a robust growth even while the world was reeling under the pressure of the pandemic. Stock market share price grew from Rs.1450/share to Rs.6500/share during my tenure as President of Apollo Hospitals.
Group Chairman & Non-executive Director, Quality Care India Ltd (April 2024 Onwards)
Group Chairman & Non-executive Director, Quality Care India Ltd. (Care Group of Hospitals, KIMSHEALTH Group of Hospitals in Kerala & Evercare Group of Hospitals in Bangladesh).