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Our guest today is Dr. Shamshi Vil,
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founder and managing director of VPS
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Healthcare, a rapidly growing company in
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the UAE. Uh Dr. Shamir, thank you very
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much for joining us today on Knowledge
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at Wharton. Thank you, Mul. Thank you
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for having me here. Uh Mike, uh and my
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co-host today is Dr. Mike Yusim, uh
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director of the leadership center. Uh
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Mike, would you like to get started? I
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will jump in and Shamsir, welcome to the
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program here. Thank you, Mike. And a
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couple years back, you were a practicing
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radiologist. You practice medicine and
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now you deliver medicine and you deliver
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it to a lot of people. The last time I
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checked, some two million people
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patients a year come into one of your
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facilities. So, just thinking about the
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transition from a practicing a person
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who practice medicine to a person now
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who delivers medicine to a lot of
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others. What did it take to make that
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transition?
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uh I'm I'm trained as a radiologist. I
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spend almost uh 10 years of my life in
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medical training. then another two years
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for the the masters and then uh I
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realized that uh as a radiologist my
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life would be uh more or less contained
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in the basement of the buildings of
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hospitals because all the radiology
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departments are in the basement and you
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don't see the sunlight and I decided
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that my life uh should be used for the
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larger good of public and uh and being
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in a business family you know you always
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have that blood of uh doing something by
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yourself and uh I worked for an here in
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the government hospital uh in Abu Dhabi.
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Then I retire resigned from the job and
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didn't know what to do. So at that time
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didn't have any formal training uh in
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business. But uh I knew I had a a strong
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desire to do something to to build a
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healthcare uh system which could clearly
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bring out the change for for the
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patients. So with that dream I started
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and uh here I am with some good number
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of hospitals, good doctors, good team
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all around. So it's been a tremendous
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journey. You know, Shamshshire, I think
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many people have the dream of one day
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becoming an entrepreneur themselves. And
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from your experience, you you opened
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your first hospital, I think it was in '
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07. Um, what did it take to finally make
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that decision? And then once you made
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it, what are some of the steps you took
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to begin to learn all the business
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skills you have to have to run an
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enterprise like a hospital? Uh, it's
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always a learning u day. every day you
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learn something new and uh as somebody
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who didn't know how to run a business or
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had no previous experience of running
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hospitals. It was it was a completely
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new challenge and I was enjoying that uh
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journey to to be there every day uh talk
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to the mechanics, talk to the the
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contracting people, talk to them about
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construction, learn how the electro
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mechanics work inside an operating room
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uh how the uh the waste water should be
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ejected out of the hospitals. So
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everything was different. Everything was
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learning and I was very keen to learn.
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So I I would be there early in the
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morning spend 18 20 hours without any
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problems fully charged uh don't get
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sleep because of the excitement and
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which is still the case uh on on on
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sometimes when when you have some
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interesting projects. So uh ability to
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learn was something which helped me a
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lot. I was I was a good listener. I I
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would listen to people and I I would
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accept that I didn't have any
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experience. So I hired the best people
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on the job. Yeah. You know, it's a very
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interesting point and that is to become
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a leader of a hospital, your chief
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executive of the system which includes
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medical centers, pharmaceutical
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delivery. It's not just hospitals in
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three different continents. Um, you've
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had to become a general manager. You've
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had to do everything. You have to know
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everything. I say I'm the owner and the
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cleaner. You know, that's very my uh my
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main focus is uh I don't involve in
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operations. My important task every day
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is I have a team of 15 to 20 people who
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are all across uh in different areas
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that we operate who gives feedback after
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talking to the patients and I get all
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the uh most of them the the the the
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impulse from from the response from the
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patients. So I take it very seriously
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and then I work backwards to the
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systems. If it's more waiting time, I
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need to talk to the CEO to to see what
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can be done to reduce the times of
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waiting inside the emergency or in the
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pharmacy or if it is an out of stock
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pharmacy situation, what to do to tackle
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it. So, uh pretty interesting. So,
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you've built a very fast growing
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business. I believe you started in 2007
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and you are now as I understand it close
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to a billion dollars worth of revenues.
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uh what was your strategy in building a
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business so rapidly uh in the UAE? Uh
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what were some of the steps you took?
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For me it was all about uh building the
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capacity you know uh I wanted to go
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where there were no facilities
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available. So for me I didn't want to
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build a hospital and expect everyone to
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come to this particular to this
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particular building. I would uh rather
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look at areas which were devoid of
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healthcare and go build capacity improve
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the the capacity efficiency comes then
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then gives you that uh ability to
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negotiate with your vendors it brings
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down your operating expenses you have uh
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service line optimizations where you
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want to retain the best talent you need
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to have certain volume so that comes
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with capacity so for me I was more on uh
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I was not focused on the revenues at all
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I knew if I focus on the quality and and
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get good doctors because that would
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bring me the revenue. So we went in for
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the accredititations. We we got the US
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accredititations to start with and that
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time it was not uh really required by uh
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any legal standards but we went and got
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all these things and it started teaching
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us how to do things in a more systematic
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way. Even though we have lot of anarchy
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which comes with the growth that we have
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but we have teams who are only focused
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on certain activities and they're not
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concerned about what's going around the
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group. So we have some people who are on
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the ground uh firefighting things every
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day but some people who are on the top
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who goes around building new centers
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like me I'm I'm more into uh building
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capacity I'm more into projects you
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would see me at any point of time in one
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of those projects the sleeves rolled up
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I still love to do it and I think speed
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is of essence we take decisions very
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fast you know we appreciate your courage
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in getting everything going back in ' 07
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and we also appreciate your courage in
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moving out of Abu Dhabi you're still
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there of course But in addition, you
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have operations now in Oman, not too far
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away. London, that's pretty far away.
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India, culturally, quite a gap there.
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And you're here now in the US to think
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about partnering with a couple of US
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hospitals as well. Looking back on on
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your movement out of your home
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territory, what of what's one of the
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more difficult cultural chasms you had
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to cross to make things work?
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See, it's always uh the comfort zone
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that you leave when you go into a a new
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territory or a new market, but you adapt
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very fast. You know the local cultural
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sensitivities. You know uh what ticks
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you need to know the the the the you
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know the demand of the people and I
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think if you can be Omani when you reach
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Oman or or being in London, you have to
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behave the way that what they want to
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see and what they want to hear from you.
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So once we can adapt to the local
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requirements of the market regardless of
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the market and keeping the patient uh
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need in the center it it works and and
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it's so good to uh uh of a time to
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exploit and and and to grow fast because
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technology has grown. You could reach uh
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any part of the world. Tomorrow morning
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I'm having some meetings in London. I
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fly back to Abu Dhabi the same night.
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The next day I have something else. So
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you can't be in a better position than
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uh what you can dream about. So just use
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the time and take decisions. So if you
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were to look back on your journey uh and
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I assume that in the past seven or eight
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years it's just barely begun. What have
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been some of the most testing challenges
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that you have faced? How did you
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overcome those challenges and what did
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you learn from them? We started at a
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time when uh the insurance law was
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introduced in 2007 in UAE. At the same
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time there was uh the financial world
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crisis which was going on. So there was
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kind of a lot of mixed responses to our
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beginning of the hospital during that
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time. But I was very confident that uh
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whatever the crisis is going around
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healthcare is going to be the last one
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which is going to be affected. In fact,
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we saw increase in the number of
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patients visiting the hospitals during
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those periods because you know they that
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leads to headaches that leads to you
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know psychiatric consultations. Uh you
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know jokes apart it's again uh the the
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testing times which gives us that
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opportunity to uh be what the market
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needs but you need to be realistic. You
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need to set uh the goals which are
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achievable and then uh go all out. You
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know, going back a little bit in our
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conversation here, one of the great
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aggravations that many patients complain
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about is weight time. And you referenced
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waiting time and trying to get that
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down. In your own experience, what are a
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couple of the tactics, the management
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tactics to cut weight time? And just to
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go back to another phrase, make the
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hospital that much more patient
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centered. I think the the concept was to
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uh to make a network of clinics all
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across going to the communities because
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we don't want patients to come inside
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the hospitals when they really don't
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have to come in because it's unnecessary
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cost. It's a lot of headache when people
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should not be in the hospitals coming
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inside is again something that we don't
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want to have in our group. So we have
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started up opening clinics all across
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the communities where we educate the
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patients that if it's something that
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they need on an urgent basis that's the
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place to be but if they are terribly
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sick then then come to the hospital. So
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there's a there's a difficult situation
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where you educate the the public and
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everyone wants to see the doctor when
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they when they are sick and they want to
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be the first to see the doctor. So again
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it's improving the accessibility point
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of view. You know, it's really
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interesting because uh hospitals are
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there to bring patients in and render
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services, but from what you've said, one
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of your tactics here, one of your
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strategies really is to keep patients
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out of the hospital, clinics, wellness
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programs, better diet, exercise, and all
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the above. And I think in that sense,
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you're delivering health services fully.
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It's not just what happens when somebody
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comes in and needs an X-ray. The best
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thing is they don't come in for an X-ray
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at all. That's right. And uh what we
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have done is we wanted the hospital to
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do cardiac surgeries, neurosurgery, knee
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replacements and uh let the patients who
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needs uh the wellness programs to go
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inside the malls uh do their shopping,
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get into these clinics, get themselves
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checked on a continuous basis because we
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have launched programs for the disease
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management of people suffering with
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diabetes so that they don't uh miss
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their medicines that leads into
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complications and end up spending a lot
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of money and time on recovering. So
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these kind of in you know in initiatives
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have been liked by people initially they
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are kind of hesitant to go to outreach
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programs but once they find value that
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is when we can see there's a successful
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program launched. So what are some of
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the most surprising innovative things
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that you have tried out? I heard
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something about a dental clinic that was
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done quite uh innovatively. Can you tell
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us that story? So there was a zoo on the
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uh the outskirts of Abu Dhabi where a
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lot of childrens used to go and I took
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my uh children as well and uh I had my
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one of my clinic managers who was just
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passing by and we had a a good
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discussion and he came up to with a with
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an interesting idea of uh you know why
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don't we start a a dental clinic inside
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the inside the zoo for the children who
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comes in so that they walk in they get a
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a routine checkup done we identify the
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carries and you know let them know that
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there's a carry happening.
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And now at that time I thought it's it's
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a crazy idea and I I I had to give him
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his you know uh due credit that I
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finally yielded into his compulsion of
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opening up the clinic and now we got
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requests from parents to have some
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facilities even for the parents to be in
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the inside the clinic when they when
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they come with the children. So I think
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this innovative ideas of reaching out to
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the masses especially inside the malls
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inside the hypermarkets that you see
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here as well uh healthcare is going to
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take a lot of change in the years to
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come. You know if you think about the
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years to come digital delivery of uh
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appraisals of diagnostics I I think it's
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out there still slow to develop but if
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we were to sit down in five years my
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guess is digital medicine is going to be
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a big piece of what you're doing.
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Digital is already there. we have uh
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diagnostic imaging which is connected
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right across the group and can be
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reported from any any facility or even
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from home. So that again uh reduces the
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need for a lot of radiologists on on the
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on the ground and that has really helped
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in faster decision-m process. So it's
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all about taking the right decision at
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the right time using the right
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technology and that saves life. You have
00:13:00
something called as the golden hour
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where you need to be connected. You
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can't expect when that golden hour is
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going to happen. It could be on a
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Sunday, it could be on a holiday and you
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don't have people on the facility and
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then if you have a digital platform
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where people can log in, see the films,
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report the uh the clinical needs that
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could save lot of hassle for the
00:13:19
patients. So uh just last week uh
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India's prime minister Narendra Modi was
00:13:25
in the US and he was in Silicon Valley
00:13:28
talking to a lot of uh uh CEOs there
00:13:31
about something called digital India. M
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uh and I think as as far as I understand
00:13:36
it, the plan is to connect more than
00:13:38
600,000 Indian villages through a fiber
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uh network. Uh what kind of
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opportunities would this provide do you
00:13:46
think for health care uh providers
00:13:50
especially to people at the bottom of
00:13:51
the pyramid who traditionally don't have
00:13:54
access to healthcare? I think this could
00:13:56
lead to a lot of two-way communications
00:13:58
when it comes to healthcare delivery and
00:14:01
uh to reach out to these areas are very
00:14:03
difficult. You know they have their own
00:14:04
logistic problems to reach out to to
00:14:06
take the best of doctors to those rural
00:14:08
areas. It's it's like next to
00:14:10
impossible. So if you have the
00:14:12
connectivity then you have things like
00:14:14
teley medicine which could be used uh we
00:14:16
could have lot of information uh passed
00:14:19
out to these public in their own
00:14:20
languages. So I think you could have lot
00:14:23
of two-way communications. You don't
00:14:25
have to wait essentially for a
00:14:26
complication to happen before uh they
00:14:28
could talk to help. They could talk to
00:14:30
somebody who can give them the help to
00:14:32
to overcome the situation.
00:14:35
Uh for a person like yourself going back
00:14:38
to let's say 06 and 07 you were a
00:14:40
professional radiologist but inside you
00:14:43
there was the entrepreneur and and and
00:14:45
the business person. And for our
00:14:47
listeners and our readers who got that
00:14:50
entrepreneurial bug somewhere that one
00:14:53
day may be more out and more recognized,
00:14:56
what what advice would you have from
00:14:57
your own experience on that kind of a
00:14:59
transition? Yeah, I think it's all about
00:15:01
that uh the the listening to your heart,
00:15:04
your your your gut feeling and what you
00:15:07
like to do. And I think that's what's
00:15:09
very important. And I remember when I
00:15:10
was doing my training, I always used to
00:15:13
think of a day when you know I could
00:15:16
have a hospital treat lot of people that
00:15:18
was always inside the heart and and
00:15:20
there was a time when it came and I have
00:15:22
to break the the the the mold and come
00:15:24
out of it and and follow my heart and
00:15:26
and there's no regret because for me at
00:15:28
that point of time the decision was
00:15:30
there was no point of return and I I
00:15:32
can't go back and do practice. So uh you
00:15:36
know I think I I I would advise a lot of
00:15:38
youngsters to come forward uh to be in
00:15:41
healthcare especially because the world
00:15:42
needs a lot more healthcare than what it
00:15:44
is right now and and there are a lot of
00:15:47
good things that you can that you can do
00:15:49
to to make money to to do good for the
00:15:51
people. There's lot of corporate social
00:15:53
responsibilities that you can do and and
00:15:55
the world needs a lot of people uh from
00:15:58
here. Give it a try. Yes, why not? Okay.
00:16:00
So, one one of the key attributes of any
00:16:03
good entrepreneur and I think you
00:16:05
referred to it somewhat in your previous
00:16:07
answer uh is the ability to pick the
00:16:09
right team. Uh and and uh I was
00:16:12
listening to Mark Zuckerberg from
00:16:14
Facebook talking about how he selects
00:16:16
people uh who are his direct reports and
00:16:19
he said what I look for is if I am
00:16:22
willing to work for that person then I
00:16:25
hire that person to work for me. What do
00:16:27
you look for in your team? Uh you know
00:16:30
for me uh it's about uh people with the
00:16:33
right attitude. The people
00:16:36
uh who don't feel that they have done it
00:16:39
all. They have seen it all who would
00:16:41
still have uh the fire in their belly
00:16:44
something to prove and uh you know uh
00:16:47
treat people with a lot of respect and
00:16:50
and for us we always had an issue with
00:16:52
job descriptions when when I remember
00:16:53
the first CEOs that I hired and they
00:16:55
asked me for a job description and I
00:16:56
said that you tell me what you can do
00:16:58
for us. So that was an approach that
00:17:00
I've taken and I still follow that and
00:17:02
uh I used to call a lot of the the top
00:17:04
directors when they join I used to call
00:17:06
them personally on a disguise name so
00:17:08
that I get a good firsthand experience
00:17:11
of how they are with people at a lower
00:17:13
level. So uh kind of freestyling when
00:17:15
when it comes to recruiting senior
00:17:17
people uh they need to uh be people
00:17:21
oriented people driven yet taking
00:17:23
decisions and not afraid of the
00:17:25
eventualities.
00:17:26
And looking back over the eight years
00:17:28
since you uh founded the hospital
00:17:31
itself, could you pick out an incident
00:17:33
or a decision or a time that seemed
00:17:36
exceptionally
00:17:37
challenging and just walk us through
00:17:39
what happened and what decision you
00:17:41
reached? because we keep taking these
00:17:43
tough decisions on a on on a daily
00:17:46
basis. But some of the decisions were we
00:17:49
have to build a a tertiary care hospital
00:17:51
and we were given a real estate uh
00:17:53
building uh and the and and we were only
00:17:56
given 10 15 days to decide whether we
00:17:58
need the building or not and it was a
00:18:00
commercial building at that time. So we
00:18:02
we uh you know brought some consultants
00:18:04
from us they came and said it's not
00:18:06
going to be possible and uh that was a
00:18:09
very difficult moment and then uh I
00:18:11
remember one of the local architects on
00:18:13
the site he gave me a solution for
00:18:15
cutting across the vertical
00:18:17
transportation and that was a challenge
00:18:18
and I have to completely trust Honum to
00:18:21
take that building which was something
00:18:22
like a 200 million project and uh
00:18:25
looking back uh uh that's something of a
00:18:28
feather in our in our cap and and it has
00:18:30
done extremely as well the the hospital
00:18:32
which looked like a hotel feel like a
00:18:36
different environment altogether. We
00:18:38
have gourmet kitchens inside. We have uh
00:18:41
the music playing all the time. People
00:18:43
come in to have a cup of coffee. So
00:18:45
that's the building. You know just a
00:18:47
quick observation of what you've said
00:18:48
with a question to it. A lot of learning
00:18:51
what you do now you've learned by doing
00:18:53
it. You've got out you went out you made
00:18:55
a decision. Should we open up a clinic
00:18:58
at a zoo? I don't know but let's try it
00:19:00
and see what happens. You call it paid
00:19:01
experience you know some of it works
00:19:04
some of it works some some failed we had
00:19:06
closures but we learn from every mistake
00:19:08
we try hard not to repeat the mistakes
00:19:10
but eventually you know keep doing the
00:19:12
same mistakes but again it's the 8020
00:19:15
rule you know the 20% of those things
00:19:17
which clicks very well compensates
00:19:20
everything. Yeah. We have uh I think
00:19:22
about a minute or so left and for the uh
00:19:25
I wonder if I can ask you to do a little
00:19:28
bit of crystal ball gazing. Where do you
00:19:31
see you and the enterprise going versus
00:19:35
the next seven or eight years? You've
00:19:37
already come a long way during the past
00:19:39
seven or eight years. What's next? We
00:19:41
want to go global. We want to uh be in
00:19:44
lot of more markets than what we are
00:19:46
right now. We want to provide a lot more
00:19:48
advanced care for the less privileged
00:19:50
across the world. Uh we have
00:19:52
manufacturing activities. We uh we u are
00:19:56
getting very strong into the
00:19:58
manufacturing activities as well. So
00:20:00
what we feel is that we have to build a
00:20:02
a healthcare ecosystem where uh we have
00:20:04
an integrated uh healthcare delivery
00:20:06
approach where we control the various
00:20:09
aspects of healthcare delivery right
00:20:11
from patient care, the logistics, supply
00:20:13
chain, the the pharmaceuticals, the back
00:20:15
end, the IT, the home care. So we we
00:20:18
feel that that's where we need to go.
00:20:20
It's a long journey. Right. Well, uh
00:20:23
Shashir, thank you so much for joining
00:20:25
us today. Mike, yeah, thank you.
00:20:28
We appreciate you're coming from Abu
00:20:30
Dhabi for joining us. A great
00:20:32
experience. Thank you so much. Thank you
00:20:33
so much for being on the knowledge at
00:20:34
Wharton show. Thank you. Thank you.
00:20:48
[Music]
