Transforming Healthcare: the Evercare Group

The Evercare Group is committed to transforming healthcare for millions of people in emerging markets. This is titled as The Evercare Group’s vision of “Transforming Healthcare in Emerging Markets.” Our commitment is underpinned by the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages”.

Tell us about Evercare’s vision for the transformation of healthcare and how you work to make that a reality. 

The Evercare Group is an impact-driven company wholly owned by the Evercare Health Fund, a US$ 1 billion fund managed by TPG’s Rise Fund, one of the largest impact investment funds in the world.

Our mission is to transform healthcare for people in emerging markets. Through this commitment, we are part of a global movement to build a more equitable and prosperous future for the world through Agenda 2030 and the Sustainable Development Goals.

Evercare operates an integrated health platform of 29 hospitals, 13 clinics and 93 diagnostic centres. Our services are delivered by our 12,000 employees in five countries across Africa and Southeast Asia, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria.

As impact investors, we have to focus on the “double bottom line”: bringing a new level of high-quality care into under-developed health systems, while at the same time building a robust business that achieves sustainable returns.We also contribute towards local long-term economic growth. We create jobs that allow our people to support their local economies and allow their countries to retain the professional expertise they worked so hard to acquire.

By providing high-quality care, we reduce the incentives for medical tourism. When high-income patients travel overseas for treatment, this represents – literally – money leaving the economy of the countries.

Equally concerning, medical tourism dilutes political support for developing local services and so the whole system suffers as a result. In addition, through our staff development programmes, we are building “human capital”, specific skills and career opportunities. We train staff to provide a better quality of care and we support national government initiatives to improve healthcare for everyone.

What are your main achievements since you inherited the group?

Since inheriting the platform in 2019, Evercare/TPG has transformed the organization strategically, operationally, and clinically while delivering robust growth. In fact, we have doubled our patients throughout the last two years (not including the COVID surge) and we continue to strengthen and expand our outreach to offer life-enhancing services across South Asia and Africa.

In Bangladesh, we acquired the Evercare Hospital Dhaka and opened a second hospital, in Chattogram. We also bought two new hospitals in India bringing the total to 13 hospitals in the country, spread across 6 states. We opened Evercare Lahore Hospital in Pakistan and Evercare Lekki Hospital in Nigeria – both greenfield projects – as well as a large number of diagnostic centres which provided essential services which were particularly relevant during the COVID-19 pandemic. These facilities are fully equipped with the latest technology and staffed with highly skilled doctors and nurses.

Evercare has also been investing in quality. Of our 29 hospitals, 15 have achieved international accreditation including Joint Commission International which sets the benchmarks for service quality and patient safety across the world. A clinical governance committee for the group meets regularly to review  monitor, guide and support the delivery of care with a focus on the quadruple aim of our healthcare system delivery:  Patient outcomes, patient experience, healthcare worker well-being and efficiency.

We also recently launched the Evercare Foundation, a not-for-profit arm of the Group, to sharpen our focus on improving the health of vulnerable women and children across our area of operations.

Although not even a year old, the Foundation has already delivered a life-changing impact through its flagship initiative in Pakistan. This programme, based at Evercare Hospital Lahore, provides free Cochlear implants and supportive care to children from rural villages who face a lifetime of hardship and exclusion due to unaddressed hearing impairment. Today in Kenya, the Foundation is developing a programme for women in resource-poor settings and rural areas to increase their access to safe pregnancy, birthing, and post-natal care by upskilling community health workers together with the Ministry of Health and local NGOs. In Bangladesh, we are supporting surgical interventions for children with congenital anomalies. Projects like these contribute to more inclusive societies and support the rights and dignity of everyone.

Moreover, at Evercare Group we believe that there is a fundamental connection between healthy patients, employees, and the environment. For us as impact investors, ESG cannot just be a punchline, it really has to be core to our DNA, and we need to live that commitment and leadership every day in our business. We recently partnered with EMEX, a global leader in ESG compliance reporting to provide real-time information in support of our environmental and sustainability goals so we can measure our progress. We have also decided to implement a series of renewable solar PV and energy efficiency projects at five key hospitals in three countries to help reduce our carbon footprint.

We cannot build quality healthcare systems without highly trained and motivated staff.

In Evercare, we use the term “Caregivers” to acknowledge that every person within our group goes above and beyond in the care they provide, regardless of their specific job profile and position in the organization. We have first-class training facilities within the Group, and we also rotate our clinicians and nursing talent through our global mobility program to provide international developmental assignments across our area of operations.

We promote and push for equal opportunities across our workforce, which is already largely composed of women on the clinical side. We currently have women in 34% of senior and middle management roles and we are committed to reach the target of 50% in the next few years. Beyond addressing the need for gender parity, Evercare is currently supporting the incubation of a women’s network and building a succession management program to ensure affirmative action.

So, we are justifiably proud of our achievements. But because we see the needs in the countries where we work, and because we remain committed to continuous improvement, we also know much remains to be done, and that keeps us focused.

What were the obstacles you faced along the way and the challenges facing the private health sector in general?

We inherited this platform on the understanding that change was required in key areas of management and delivery. I believe we are on the right track and a lot of progress has been attained, but the focus has to be on working towards the next level of excellence.

Of course, the COVID pandemic has been a major factor, and no one could have predicted the scale of its impact. Our first duty was to contribute to the national response in the countries where we operate, and we immediately established comprehensive clinical and operational pandemic response protocols across all our facilities. The pressure was immense, particularly for our frontline caregivers but we navigated the pandemic very effectively. We learned a lot and came out stronger, much stronger as a Group. In middle-income countries, the pandemic has further weakened health systems which were already suffering from decades of under-investment. In turn, this impacts access to provision, quality of care and inevitably on the health of its citizens. The government cannot be left to act alone, and we have to combine our efforts to move the needle on the big issues like access and workforce if Universal Health Coverage is going to be realised in our lifetimes.

Consequently, we are expanding our partnerships to address the challenges we face today, working in partnership with other service providers, governments, communities, our staff, and patients.

What are Evercare’s plans for the future? 

When we look to our future, we just need to steady the course and remain true to our mission. We are on a growth curve, and we will keep focusing on extending our reach, bringing healthcare services closer to our patients with an increasing number of hubs, clinics, and remote services.

Looking ahead, we see an increasing role for technology in executing this strategy and we are already looking at how we can build our own capacity in telemedicine, robotic medicines, and other areas. We are also making plans for further investment in professional education to resource our services and to help young people to fulfil their ambitions to become doctors or nurses.

About Massimiliano Colella

Massimiliano Colella is the Chief Executive Officer of the Evercare Group, the leading impact driven healthcare network in emerging markets across Africa and South Asia. He is widely recognised as an expert in leading healthcare companies to success with almost three decades of experience in large multinationals such as Johnson & Johnson and Smith & Nephew. He has served as a Board Member with Industry Associations and Chambers of Commerce such as Asia-Pacific Med-tech, Europe MedTech Association, and the American Chamber of Commerce in Czech Republic.

About the Evercare Foundation

The Evercare Foundation is a non-profit organization that serves as the philanthropic arm of the Evercare Group. We are driven by an ambition to create long-term positive social change for vulnerable communities who have a fundamental right to good health and wellbeing. Through the Evercare Foundation, we aim to focus on communities who have limited or no access to quality healthcare with a focus on women and children’s health.

About the Evercare Group

Evercare is an impact driven company wholly owned by the Evercare Health Fund, a US$ 1 billion emerging markets healthcare fund managed by TPG’s the Rise Fund, an impact investing fund working with growth-stage, mission driven companies that have the power to change the world. TPG’s the Rise Fund is one of the largest impact investment funds in the world.

The Evercare Group is committed to transforming healthcare for millions of people in emerging markets. This is titled as The Evercare Group’s vision of “Transforming Healthcare in Emerging Markets.” Our commitment is underpinned by the UN Sustainable Development Goal 3 (SDG3) “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all, at all ages”.

Our integrated health platform comprises 29 hospitals, 13 clinics, 93 diagnostic centres, and 12,000 employees and Caregivers across Africa and Southeast Asia mainly in five countries:  India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Kenya, and Nigeria.  We focus on the “double bottom line”: bringing high-quality care to traditionally underserved communities, while building a robust business and achieving measurable and sustainable returns.  Since inheriting the platform in 2019, Evercare/TPG has transformed the organization strategically, operationally, and clinically while still delivering robust growth.