Express News Service
Chennai, March 15

Lifeline, a city-based group of health care centres, has acquired one hospital and 15 clinics in Karur, Namakkal, Erode and Coimbatore. There are plans to network the health care units in a hub-and-spokes model, Lifeline medical director Dr J S Rajkumar said on Wednesday.

The 13 clinics would be linked to the newly-renamed S&VLoga Lifeline Hospital, Karur-whose management Lifeline Group has taken over on lease for 15 years on a revenue sharing basis -which in turn would be linked to Lifeline Hospital in Perungudi. Each clinic would have one or two consultants, with a pharmacy, a laboratory and diagnostic facili¬ties such as X-ray and ECG, Dr.Rajkumar told reporters.

Lifeline has paid anywhere between Rs.8 lakh to Rs.15 lakh per clinic, depending on its facil¬ities and has entered into a 35:65 revenue sharing agreement with the Karur multi-specialty hospi¬tal. Lifeline would also make an additional investment of Rs.50 lakh in future, to upgrade the clin¬ics.

With Telemedicine as the con¬necting link between clinics, the Karur-based 120-bedded hospi¬tal and the nerve centre in Chen¬nai, the hub-and-spokes model would be able to bring cutting-edge medical technology to vil¬lages in the western districts, Dr Selva Annamalai of Lifeline said. “Earlier, even for finding out what they were ill with, the patient had to travel long distances, when it came to ailments related to, say, the heart or in the event of an acci¬dent. Telemedicine would reduce distances,” said Dr Annamalai.

“While Telemedicine would cut down on travel, patients might have to come to Chennai for spe¬cialised surgical care. In such cases, electronic medical records would ensure continuity of med¬ical care even after the patient goes back to his village after a surgery in Chennai,” Dr Anna¬malai pointed out.

The hospital group is interest¬ed in taking up similar projects in southern districts such as Kanyakumari, especially in the area of trauma care, given the need for tertiary care in remote villages.