March 2013

Aalatimes.com interview of Dr Santanu Chattopadhyay

“In India every doctor wants to pursue a career in a speciality or super speciality”

In an exclusive interview with AalaTimes, Dr Santanu Chattopadhyay talks about his journey from a doctor to an entrepreneur, his vision for NationWide and how the company has been deploying and using technology as quality control measures and providing better care to its patients.

Read the exclusive interview at Aalatimes.com interview with Dr Santanu Chattopadhyay

September 2012

CEO’s letter to NationWide Customers

February 2012

An Open Letter to my Doctor Colleagues

Dear Doctor,
Greetings from NationWide, India’s first healthcare company completely dedicated to developing world class primary healthcare infrastructure for our country. However, we have been “first-in-India” in many other aspects too! Please read on to know more about our pioneering work.

Who we are?

NationWide Primary Healthcare Services Pvt. Ltd. (NationWide) was founded by 2 doctors just like you, with a very humble background. After completing our medical degree and residency from reputed institutes, such as PGI, Chandigarh, we moved to the UK for higher studies and career progression. Working in the National Health Service (NHS), we realized that primary care constitutes the backbone of healthcare infrastructure in the developed world. Thus we started envisioning creating something similar in India.

With this dream, I decided to develop expertise in management by pursuing an MBA from one of the best Business Schools in the world, viz INSEAD in France. Subsequently, I worked in a large healthcare company – Johnson and Johnson, and later managed start-up companies for several years. During this time, Dr Shantanu Rahman, decided to switch from hospital medicine to General Practice (GP) in the UK to understand the nuances of running a GP practice.  After gaining a decade of experience in our chosen fields, we decided to join hands to give birth to a new revolution called NationWide. In this endeavour, we are well supported by a highly professional management team and a medical team with international experience in Family Medicine. In fact many of our managers are dually qualified in management and medicine.

What do we do?

We are essentially a chain of Family Physician and Paediatric clinics providing day-to-day primary care for adults and children, including nursing, vaccination, lab and pharmacy services under one roof. We pride ourselves on patient-centric practice, 24/7 access and modern technology-enabled clinics with Electronic Medical Records (EMR) at the heart of our clinical operations.

What have we achieved so far?

Having founded the company in April 2010, and starting our operations in Bangalore in September 2010, we are already operating from 16 locations in various parts of the city with several thousand customers, including 1000 plus subscribers on our health plan. Our customers consistently rate us above 4.65 on a scale of 5 in terms of their satisfaction. We are proud to have a 37-member team, including several Board Certified Family Medicine Specialists and GPs from the UK and USA, who have relocated back to India with a passion to serve their own country. These doctors were long looking for a platform to practice Family Medicine in India in the way they have been trained abroad and instantly jumped on our ship as soon as they heard about us.

What are our future plans?

We will be focusing on scaling up our network in Bangalore and plan to open more than 250 such Primary Care clinics across the country over the next 5 years. With this amazing rate of growth in our vision, we are inviting doctors who are passionate about Family Medicine to join this revolution and enjoy the fruits of this growth.

By bringing the “family doctor” back into the community and as an organized, performance-driven corporate entity, we aspire to revolutionize the way primary care is delivered in India.

What can you expect from us?

Being doctors, we understand the challenges you face in pursuing a career in primary care in India. We are the first private primary healthcare provider in India who provides doctors a career, rather than a job! You can join us at different levels and expect the organization to invest in you, so that you can work your way up to become a partner. Throughout your journey, you will be provided support to acquire relevant clinical and managerial skills, as well as to get international or national qualifications such as the MRCGP (Int). At NationWide, 10% of the doctors’ time is protected training time, dedicated solely to clinical and soft skills learning and you get paid for such training – again a first in India!!

Apart from a market competitive salary, you will receive an on-call allowance, performance bonus and profit share from the clinics you manage in an ethical and transparent environment. Finally, you might have heard from your friends in the software industry about “making it big through Stock Options”. Some of you might have wondered why such opportunities are not available in the Medical Profession. Again, NationWide is a Pioneer in bringing a world-class Stock Options plan to provide Indian doctors an opportunity to create and share wealth.

If all this sounds exciting and you want to chat with one of our founders or other doctors, do shoot us a mail to career@nationwidedocs.org.Our HR team will call you right back!

We are particularly interested if you a MRCGP (UK or Int), Diplomate of American Board of Family Physicians, Diploma/DNB in Family Medicine, MD (Internal Medicine or Paediatrics), Diploma in Child Health, or MBBS with at least 5 years of experience. Additionally, MBBS doctors with other PG or no PG qualifications, but passionate about a career in Family Medicine are also welcome to apply.

Warm Regards,

Dr Santanu Chattopadhyay
MD (PGI), MRCP (UK), MBA (INSEAD)
CEO & Managing Director
NationWide Primary Healthcare Services Pvt. Ltd