‘Madhavbaug has been instrumental in standardising Ayurveda therapies in preventive cardiology sector’

Madhavbaug aims to inaugurate 60 new clinics across North Western and South India to provide ayurvedic treatment to the people. Dr Rohit Sane, CEO and MD, Madhavbaug, in an interaction with Swati Rana, shared the expansion plan of Madhavbaug centre to increase the accessibility of Ayurvedic treatments

Tell us about the emergence of Madhavbaug and the role played by the company to uplift the Ayurveda sector.

Madhavbaug was established in 2006 as a tribute to my father, Dr Madhav Sane, who expired in 2004 due to a cardiac failure. It was then that I realised the importance of preventative cardiac care and strengthening heart exercise capacity — also known as Vo2 max. Thus, we started operating 128 clinics and two hospitals in Maharashtra, Goa and now in Madhya Pradesh. Our first hospital became operational in 2006 in Khopoli with a mere nine patients’ IPD. At that time, treating heart diseases through Ayurveda seemed like an impossible task but an Ayurvedic panchakarma procedure called SampurnaHridayashuddhikar- designed by me, proved to benefit several patients suffering from heart failure. Our hospital experiences gave us confidence in treating heart failure patients, so we began our chain of clinics, always keeping in mind patient comfort and convenience. Madhavbaug is a pioneer in modern Ayurvedic medical practice and has treated over three lakh patients in the last 10 years.

Madhavbaug has a set of defined protocols and Ayurvedic treatments for various cardiac disorders including chronic heart failure, ischemic heart disease, and low ejection fraction after a heart attack.

Madhavbaug has also designed treatment protocols to treat type II diabetes, high blood pressure, deranged lipids, obesity, and other risk factors leading to heart disease. We have presented over 20 research papers on national and international cardiology platforms such as Lancet, World Cardiology Congress, and British Journal of Medicine. Recently, we published a randomised controlled trial for chronic heart failure patients comparing Madhavbaug’s therapy with conventional modern management in the Indian Heart Journal, which is the official publication of Cardiological Society of India. Additionally, several herbs have been studied using reverse pharmacology through animal trials for their efficacy in treating health issues such as diabetes, high blood pressure, atherosclerosis, and anti-platelet activity, among others.

Madhavbaug has been instrumental in standardising Ayurveda therapies in the preventive cardiology sector. Till date, we have trained over 500 doctors in the science of Preventive Cardiology so as to benefit mankind. Although we live in an era where only a few people have faith in Ayurvedic therapies for their heart disorders, Madhavbaug has been successful in treating more than 3 lakh heart patients through a wide network of clinics and hospitals. Earlier, Ayurveda was a science that lacked the necessary parameters to prove the efficacy of its treatments but Madhavbaug fused the parameters of modern medicine with Ayurvedic therapies to prove that the benefits of Ayurveda are still very relevant to today’s society.

What are the challenges faced by the company?

Since 2006, our journey has been very interesting. The single biggest challenge we have faced and continued to face is helping patients understand the importance of improving their health and making preventative cardiac care a priority. Apart from this, the process of fine-tuning our treatment protocols require considerable time and effort but we overcame all obstacles. We also faced challenges related to the shortage of trained manpower and developed a training system to increase the availability of manpower effectively.

Tell us about your on-going research project.

We are planning to invest into multiple domains of cardiac care. Atherosclerosis remains one of the most common heart diseases in India. The likelihood of the disease increases with age and poor lifestyle and diet are the major causes. With the number of cases increasing year-on-year, we plan to invest into anti-atherosclerosis regimen to add to our already existing non-invasive treatment for the same.

Another area of research will be in the treatment regime for Dyslipidemia. Dyslipidemia or abnormally high levels of cholesterol in blood is one of the major causes of plaque deposits in arteries which cause further complications for the heart. Treating dyslipidemia effectively will be in line with our preventive heart care approach as it is one of the leading factors in coronary heart disease and stroke.
Finally, we look forward to assess and document the efficacy of existing therapies with globally accepted criteria such as NT-ProBNP for chronic heart failure, and Stress Thallium test for Ischemic Heart Disease.

What steps should the government take for standardising regulation in Ayurveda?

Ministry of AYUSH was formed in 2014 which was a big initiative in standardising and regularising Ayurveda and other traditional Indian healthcare systems. AYUSH is responsible for policy formation, development and implementation of programmes for the growth, development and propagation of Ayurveda. Strategies to globalise and promote Ayurveda are currently being developed under AYUSH initiatives. These strategies focus on safety-efficacy-quality aspects of ayurvedic formulations, along with rational usage of Ayurveda. The safety, efficacy and quality profiles of formulations are globally accepted parameters that help in standardisation. Going forward, there is a need for more government investment into research and standardising regulations in Ayurveda, as there is a fierce financial investment wave from institutes that promote modern medicines. Increased investment into standardising regulations in Ayurveda will help achieve global acceptance of this highly effective Indian traditional practice at a faster rate.

Brief us on the course provided by Madhavbaug’s Institute of Preventive Cardiology.

The course provided by Madhavbaug’s Institute of Preventive Cardiology is for BAMS ,BHMS and MBBS graduates who want to add additional qualification and acquire professional training in cardiology. The courses include ‘Cardiac Emergencies’, ‘Cardiac Rehabilitation’, ‘Cardiac Investigation’, ‘Cardiac Therapist’, and more. Certified by Maharashtra University of Health Science (MUHS), the coursework is an integration of modern diagnostics and ancient knowledge of ayurveda. It gives a holistic perspective of role of lifestyle management, homeopathic medicine with respect to cardiac disease, role of specific Panchakarma with respect to cardiac disease, and skills with respect to diagnostic exploration. This extensive course prepares and equips the participants to be equipped with interpreting results of advanced diagnostic tools and suggesting effective researched therapies accordingly.

Tell us about your expansion plan PAN India.

Over the next 10 years, we want to push ourselves more into the digital space while also expanding our foothold into both rural and urban areas of other states.
There are four ways we want to do the expansion. This document will be produced across all the states of India where Madhavbaug will expand its foothold.

a.) Save My Heart: Save My Heart is a combo of prevention and emergency management. Save my heart is an app, connected with physical devices, which will be there in the house whenever needed. There will be a set of devices that will monitor the vitals of a person, such as BP, heart rate, SPO2, etc. This will reduce the number of deaths due to heart attacks as the time to reach a hospital will reduce drastically and the correct medical advice will be given on time. We expect about 1 lakh patients to be in this Save My Heart Care in next three to four years, 10 lakhs users by 2025. However, with one person using it in one family and therefore more users joining in, the numbers are expected to reach around 1 crore.

b.) Preventologist vertical: We will have a preventologist, who will visit home every three months in a year to evaluate heart health of senior citizens as well as other individuals. Based on that, it gives the patient a clear understanding as to what to eat, what to exercise, which asanas to perform, how to relieve stress, how much not to exercise, etc. This creates a monitoring through the app as well as personal guiding system. Based on the year’s data, the preventologist will give them targets, e.g in the next year, reduce BMI from 28 to 25. Preventologist will serve about 420 patients per year. In such a way, we will have 20,000 preventologists in the next five to seven years. Hence, total patients served will be 1 crore a year.

c.) Madhavbaug Clinics and hospitals: In future, every state, every year, we will build 20 more ‘company clinics.’ Franchise will then come up as it is in Maharashtra. Our franchisee option is only available to the doctors. So in next seven to eight years, we will have about 1,000 clinics all over the nation. These 1,000 clinics will, at the end of completion of their five years, will have a minimum footfall of 7-8k patients in a year. Also, by 2025, we plan to have 10 hospitals with 60,000 footfalls per year per hospital.

d.) OPD: A large number of people reside in rural areas. In next seven years, we plan to build 5000 OPDs all over nation. Every state will have 500 OPDs, completely franchised. These OPDs will be run by trained preventive cardiologists. With this model in place, Madhavbaug will be able to serve rural population, which has right now very little access for cardiac treatments.

In total, we expect to have about three to four crore people under Madhavbaug care with these four models by 2025.

What is the company’s road map for 2018?

By the end of 2018, we aim to inaugurate 60 new clinics across North Western and South India. Part of these will be Madhavbaug-owned clinics, while others will work on the franchise model. The clinics will operate in the semi-urban and urban areas. In case of rural areas, we will open 50 new Out Patient Departments (OPDs) which will work completely on a franchise model.

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