The article summarizes a new book about Aravind Eye Hospital and its unique business model of providing high quality eye care, even though it treats 60% of patients for free or at subsidized rates. The book details how Aravind has remained self-reliant through strategies like manufacturing its own lower-cost intraocular lenses. It discusses the hospital's clear vision of eliminating needless blindness and how founder Dr. V. instilled a sense of purpose in employees. While growing rapidly to serve more people, Aravind focuses on ethics and innovation over profits. The model is described as "upside-down" but highly successful in delivering standard, low-cost surgery.

1. Times of India
26 January 2012
Book traces Aravind eye hospital’s
business model of compassion
Shalini Umachandran TNN
Chennai: In the late 1990s, a silver haired gentleman pulled out his cheque book to pay
for treatment at Aravind Eye Hospital in Madurai. The clerk said they only took cash.
Since the man wasn’t carrying any, he was directed to the free service section. APJ
Abdul Kalam, who later became the President, came away thrilled with the quality of
care he had received one of its 32 million patients in 35 years.
Even though Aravind Eye Care System, with seven hospitals and 49 centres across
Tamil Nadu, treats 60% of its patients for free or at subsidised rates, it remains
stubbornly self-reliant, uncompromisingly efficient, and provides quality care.
It’s this rather baffling success story that is the theme of a new book, Infinite Vision:
How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for Compassion, which was
launched in Chennai on Wednesday. Authors Pavithra K Mehta and Suchitra Shenoy
spent six years interviewing patients, doctors, nurses, employees, family members and
partners to unravel the story of how empathy and ethics can drive efficiency, scale and
profitability.
It’s an upside-down model that breaks all the rules, says Mehta, who is also Aravind
founder Dr Venkatasamys grand niece. Lots of people do service on a donation model.
Aravind is self-reliant. We wanted to look at how one achieves this, she says.
The hospital, founded by Dr G Venkatasamy or Dr V in 1976 as an 11-bed clinic in
Madurai, has done this by stretching every resource. In the late 1980s, to make cataract
surgery affordable, Aravind started manufacturing its own intraocular lenses, which till
then were imported at $150 a lens. Aravind cut the cost to $2 a lens and exported it to
developing countries. The ideas are now seen as counterintuitive strategies. Then, it
was just a question of how to serve people, says Shenoy. They continue to innovate and
that makes them efficient, she says.

2. There have been challenges too retention of staff, competition from corporate hospitals,
and the transition in leadership between generations of the family, especially after Dr
Vs death in 2006.Business analysts who have studied the model attribute its success to a
clear vision to eradicate needless blindness. Their goal was not money or commercial
success. Dr V managed to infuse his employees with a larger sense of purpose, says
Pradipta K Mohapatra, chairman, Executive Coaching Foundation of India, who was
associated with Aravind and knew Dr V.
The hospital has never invested in high-profile advertising campaigns, relying instead
on camps and outreach programmes to bring patients in from rural areas. Brand
consultant Harish Bijoor describes the Aravind model as a classic case of socially
sustainable marketing. They’ve taken aggressive marketing models and made them
benign, he says. “This is a case of McDonald-isation of surgery delivering standard
quality at lower costs. They’ve learnt from the bad guys to do good,” he says.
Shenoy says there’s a lesson in the story. While linking scale and quality, scale takes
time, but once the ethics are in place, the organisation will keep growing, she says.
EYE ON SERVICE: Writers Suchitra Shenoy and Pavithra K Mehta at the launch of
Infinite Vision: How Aravind Became the World’s Greatest Business Case for
Compassion in Chennai on Wednesday