Centralized Functions with Economies of Scale

[Go to the main IndiMR Site]

As mentioned earlier in this document, UK’s NHS system is a source of envy for many countries due to its cost-efficiencies. Several experts have recommended emulating NHS. However, given that India’s constitution makes health primarily a state responsibility, such a solution doesn’t seem very feasible. Nevertheless, it is possible to create a system in which many aspects of the public health services can be centralized, with the NEMRS playing the role of the central unifying hub. For example, NEMRS can serve as a hub for vendors of drugs and other supplies, to bid for the contracts by different state governments, which themselves can make accurate statewide assessments of their needs since the inventories of all health centers are linked with the system. Thus, the health administrators will be able to maximize their budgets and take advantage of their market size to bargain for better prices from the vendors. Similar advantages of economies of scale will apply to many other functions of the healthcare organizations. Additionally, NEMRS will provide a good mechanism for identifying personnel needs and allowing health centers, and health personnel, to match with each other.

The health policy related recommendations that the center makes could be made available to different state units, and make it possible, if the states find them appropriate, to make them operational by a few clicks in the system.