Founded in 1976 to eliminate preventable blindness, the Aravind Eye Care System today is the largest and most productive eye care facility in the world, and recently received the Global Health Award from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. As Thulasiraj Ravilla explains in this audio interview with host Sheela Sethuraman, this award was based not so much on Aravind's activities as on its fresh approach to management. He talks about the hospital's patient base, payment systems, approaches to managing resources and sustaining growth, continuous improvement programs, and medical innovations.
Thulasiraj Ravilla was born in 1951 in a small village in South India. He received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management in Calcutta and continued to work there for British Paints (now Berger Paints). In 1981, he left his corporate job and joined Aravind. He then spent about a year at the University of Michigan as a visiting scholar to get an academic foundation in hospital and health management. Since then, Ravilla has been part of the leadership team that turned Aravind into the world’s largest provider of eye care. He developed the LAICO-Aravind Eye Hospital Care System in 1992 and continues to head it. He also served for five years as the regional chair of the International Agency for Prevention of Blindness for the South East Asia Region.
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This free podcast is from our Design For Change series.
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