Photo credit:@AmirHus35857585
Devi Prasad Shetty, who was born on May 8, 1953, is an Indian cardiac surgeon, and a pioneer of affordable healthcare, who brought drastic change to heart surgeries. Shetty is the founder and chairman of Narayana Health – a chain of 24 medical centers across India – and has completed over 100,000 heart surgeries; he is one of the most influential figures in the modern Indian healthcare industry. For his accomplishments, the Indian government has awarded him with Padma Shri in 2004 and Padma Bhushan in 2012.
In this blog, I outline Dr. Christian Shetty’s early life and his involvement in the medical field, his work in providing affordable treatments, and crediting him as an innovator in the sphere of healthcare treatment.
| Category | Details |
| Full Name | Devi Prasad Shetty |
| Date of Birth | May 8, 1953 |
| Place of Birth | Kinnigoli, Dakshina Kannada district, Karnataka, India |
| Nationality | Indian |
| Occupation | Cardiac Surgeon, Chairman, and Founder of Narayana Health |
| Family | Married, with 4 children |
| Education | – St. Aloysius School, Mangalore – MBBS (1979), Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore – Post-Graduate in General Surgery, Kasturba Medical College – FRCS, Royal College of Surgeons, England |
| Key Professional Milestones | – 1989: Returned to India, worked at B.M. Birla Hospital, Kolkata – 1992: Performed India’s first neonatal heart surgery – 2001: Founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (now Narayana Health), Bangalore – Pioneered low-cost diagnostic services and affordable healthcare – Chairman of the Karnataka COVID-19 Task Force |
| Notable Surgeries | – Performed over 100,000 heart surgeries – First neonatal heart surgery in India on a 21-day-old baby in 1992 – Served as personal physician to Mother Teresa |
| Special Achievements | – Developed the Narayana Hrudayalaya hospital model, emphasizing economies of scale – Hospitals under his leadership perform 30–35 surgeries a day compared to the average of 1–2 surgeries in U.S. hospitals – Innovated in low-cost healthcare, reducing heart surgery costs to 95,000 INR ($1,583) and aiming for $800 – Pioneered Yeshasvini, a low-cost health insurance scheme for poor farmers, covering 4 million people – Collaborated with international healthcare providers (e.g., Ascension Health) to expand affordable healthcare |
| Notable Healthcare Innovations | – Reduced costs through economies of scale – Eliminated unnecessary pre-op testing and streamlined patient care by involving family members in post-operative care – Focused on cost-cutting measures such as using cross-ventilation instead of air conditioning – Employed assembly-line efficiency in heart surgeries to increase patient throughput |
| Narayana Health (formerly NH) | – Founded: 2001, Bangalore – Network: 47 healthcare facilities, including a hospital in the Cayman Islands – Focus: Affordable healthcare, economies of scale in surgical procedures – Publicly listed: 2015 – Global presence: Expansion plans in India, Africa, and Asia with 30,000-bed target – Mission: Providing affordable healthcare to all, particularly the underprivileged |
| Low-Cost Healthcare Impact | – Heart surgeries in Narayana hospitals cost significantly lower than in the U.S., e.g., $1,583 compared to $106,385 at Ohio’s Cleveland Clinic – Aims to further reduce costs to $800 for heart surgeries – Narayana hospitals provide substantial free care for poor children |
| Yeshasvini Health Insurance Scheme | – Designed in collaboration with the Karnataka Government – A low-cost micro-health insurance scheme for farmers – Covers 4 million people, particularly targeting the poor |
| Major Collaborations | – TriMedx: Joint venture to create a hospital chain in partnership with Ascension Health – Ascension Health: Set up a healthcare city in the Cayman Islands with plans for 2,000 beds |
| Key Projects | – Rabindranath Tagore International Institute of Cardiac Sciences (RTIICS), Kolkata – Memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Karnataka Government for a 5,000-bed specialty hospital near Bangalore International Airport – MOU with the Gujarat Government to set up a 5,000-bed hospital in Ahmedabad |
| Philosophy on Healthcare | – Believes that the cost of healthcare can be reduced by 50% in the next 5-10 years through economies of scale – Emphasizes process innovation in healthcare, similar to what Japanese companies did for car manufacturing |
| Awards and Honors | – Padma Shri (2004) – Fourth highest civilian award in India – Padma Bhushan (2012) – Third highest civilian award in India – Karnataka Ratna (2001) – Entrepreneur of the Year (2012) – Economic Times awards – Schwab Foundation Award (2005) – Dr. B.C. Roy Award (2003) – Rajyotsava Award (2002) – Sir M. Visvesvaraya Memorial Award (2003) – Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Life Sciences (2012) – Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year – Start-up (2003) – Indian of the Year (Public Sector) by CNN-IBN (2012) – The Economist Innovation Award (2011) – Honorary degrees from University of Minnesota (2011) and IIT Madras (2014) |
| Media and Public Recognition | – Featured in Netflix docuseries “The Surgeon’s Cut” (2020), focusing on his work in affordable healthcare and heart surgeries – Known as the “Henry Ford of heart surgery” for his assembly-line approach to healthcare – Revered in rural India as “Bypasswale Baba” for his accessible and affordable surgeries |
| Personal Life | – Often seen in his trademark blue surgeon’s outfit – Served as Mother Teresa’s personal physician – Has maintained a 75% stake in Narayana Health along with his family – Resides in Bangalore, India |
| Forbes Recognition | – Ranked #1694 in the Billionaires list of 2024 – Noted for his contributions to healthcare and affordable medical services |
| Hospital Operations and Expansion | – Narayana Hrudayalaya operates 23 hospitals, 8 heart centers, and 24 primary care facilities across India – Plans to expand to 30,000 beds across hospitals in India, Africa, and other Asian countries – Focus on reducing costs through careful management of operations and partnerships |
| COVID-19 Task Force | – Appointed as chairman of the COVID-19 task force in Karnataka – Faced criticism for his lack of an epidemiological approach to managing the pandemic, as he is a cardiac surgeon |
| Business Model and Strategy | – Reduces costs through economies of scale, tighter control on purchases, and avoiding unnecessary overheads – Partners buy land and buildings while Narayana Health spends on management and equipment – Innovative in sourcing cheaper alternatives for expensive imported medical equipment |
| Impact on Indian Healthcare | – Significant reduction in healthcare costs, particularly in heart surgeries – Pioneering efforts to increase access to medical care for the poor and underserved populations of India – Targeted expansion in underserved regions, with a focus on providing affordable healthcare |
Dr.Devi Shetty was born in a small village of Kinnigoli in Dakshina Kannada district of Karnataka,India. He grew up as the eighth of nine children to his parents. Born and raised in a simple family background, Shetty was motivated early in his life when he learned about Christiaan Barnard, a South African surgeon who did the world’s first heart transplant. This moment was life-changing for Shetty, and at an early age, he made up his mind to spend the rest of his life as a heart surgeon.
Shetty’s formal education commenced in 1978 at St. Aloysius School, Mangaluru that provided him the base of his aspiring medical future. MBBS degree was obtained in the year 1979, and the postgraduate degree in General Surgery from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore. Undeterred, Shetty went on to do the FRCS (Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons) in England which was a qualification that would serve him well in future as he sought international recognition.
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Subsequent to the completion of his academic tenure, Dr. Shetty came back to India in 1989 and joined the B.M. Birla Hospital in Kolkata. It was here that he recorded a breakthrough in Indian medical history when he surgically operated on a neonatal patient, Ronnie in 1992 at the age of 21 days, for a heart ailment. This accomplishment helped bolster the position of Shetty as one of the elite cardiac surgeons in the country. The second important achievement was his collaboration with Mother Theresa; Shetty performed a surgery on her when she had a heart attack and then become her personal doctor, which contributed to his fame.
Dr. Shetty’s early experiences in Kolkata taught him that the cost of healthcare in India was prohibitively expensive for most citizens. Determined to find a solution, he conceptualized a healthcare model that would make life-saving surgeries affordable for all, regardless of economic background.
In 2001 Shetty founded Narayana Hrudayalaya (now Narayana Health) at Bommasandra, a suburb of Bangalore. This multi-specialty hospital idea was founded on the concept of economies of scale, which decides that doing a lot more surgeries means that overall healthcare costs would decline. But, Narayana Health has grown incredibly fast to become one of the largest healthcare systems in India with a growing international portfolio with hospitals in Africa and Cayman Islands.
Ideas and concepts applied to practice and planning by Shetty were not only for the Indian context, but for global affordable healthcare. Narayana Health has roped in Ascension Health, a healthcare player based in the United States to launch a healthcare city in the Cayman Islands with plans of offering 2,000 beds in an attempt to address the shortage of healthcare in the Caribbean.
Shetty’s method was unconventional. Instead of seeking product innovation, he dedicated his efforts towards seeking the optimization of process that decreased the cost of complicated heart surgeries significantly. Kamath made the organization famous for operating like an assembly line in surgery, where several surgery operations could be conducted in a day, ranging from 30 to 35 surgeries; as opposed to the one or two surgeries conducted in an entire day in a hospital in the United States.
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By bringing change to the health care system, Dr. Shetty was referred to as the ‘Henry Ford of heart surgery,’ as Ford altered car production. Following the Fordist practices of mass production and efficiency, Shetty put into effect comparable tactics in medicine to minimize the cost of heart surgeries and implement cross ventilation rather than air conditioning and purchase less expensive surgical scrubs.
In 2009, The Wall Street Journal published an article describing Shetty’s vision, quoting him as saying that healthcare needs process innovation rather than product innovation. By 2013, Shetty had reduced the cost of a coronary bypass surgery to 95,000 rupees (about $1,583), half of what it had been 20 years earlier. He aims to lower it further to $800 per surgery, a far cry from the $106,385 cost of the same procedure at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.
To ensure that his dream of providing affordable healthcare was not limited to cardiac surgeries only he was instrumental in establishing. He also introduced such measures as low cost diagnostic services further cutting on the cost of healthcare delivery. His hospitals deliver about one-third of their services for charity, especially to children belonging to poor families.
Shetty’s low-cost model of healthcare was not confined to India only. He mapped the strategy for opening new Narayana Health hospitals in Africa and rest of Asia with a vision of having about 30,000 beds in total across different regions. His aim is to treat the suffering of millions of people in the Third World who cannot afford expensive medical care.
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Besides the provision of affordable health care, Dr. Shetty has engaged in public health projects, particularly the Yeshasvini Cooperative Farmers Health Care Scheme. Started in 2003 as a public-private partnership with the Government of Karnataka, this low-cost health insurance programme of Sri Trang provides cover for over 800 surgical procedures for farmers in the rural areas of the state. Yeshasvini offers surgeries to over 4 million people for only 18 rupees per month, and this has been impacting needy patients by creating access for otherwise expensive services .
This micro-insurance program is another way that Shetty has shown concern in providing health care facilities even to the undeserved populace. People have lauded this as an excellent model of how other countries with similar needs for health care solutions for their rural population can emulate.
Challenges and Leadership During COVID-19
In 2020, Dr. Shetty was appointed as the chairman of Karnataka’s COVID-19 task force. While his leadership during the pandemic was commendable, some global health experts criticized his lack of an epidemiological approach to managing the virus, given his background as a cardiac surgeon. Nevertheless, Shetty’s expertise in healthcare management and hospital infrastructure played a vital role in managing the crisis in Karnataka.
Recognition and Awards
Dr. Shetty’s innovative contributions to healthcare have earned him numerous accolades, including:
In addition to these honors, Shetty was featured in the fourth episode of Netflix’s docuseries The Surgeon’s Cut, where his work in providing affordable healthcare was showcased to a global audience.
The Legacy of Dr. Devi Shetty
Seventy-one-year-old Dr. Devi Prasad Shetty is such an inspiring figure that has become a hope for millions of patients all around the world. It is through his various endeavors that he has been able to ensure that many people get to live through health facilities that he has placements and his heart surgeries and other important operations are easy to take by the poor.
Realising that in many parts of the world healthcare is still inaccessible to many, Dr. Shetty’s model is the only possible way of achieving universal healthcare that will not cripple already strained healthcare systems. He is not only an icon of operating room but also has sent a message to the whole world that if there is will then there should be way no matter how complicated it may seem.
The above-mentioned steps viz., through Narayana Health, the Yeshasvini scheme, and his continuous work for affordable health care, the doctor has revolutionized the concept of health care in India and the whole world. His contributions remain a coinage of the possibilities of innovation and humanness in practicing medicine.
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