A Seattle-based firm that created one of the largest hospital systems in Southeast Asia and India plans to invest another USD150 million to expand its network to 34 hospitals and one clinic by 2018.
Columbia Pacific Management and its investment partners created the Columbia Asia hospital system with a business model focused on serving Asia’s rapidly growing middle class with modern and efficient multispecialty hospitals located close to where patients live and work.
Columbia Asia opened four new hospitals in the last few months – in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, in the Indonesian city of Semarang and in Bangalore and Ahmedabad, India. The company currently has more than 8,000 employees serving more than two million patients a year in 26 hospitals and one clinic in Malaysia, India, Indonesia and Vietnam.
“When we began opening hospitals, virtually all of the care was paid for directly by the patients but in countries like Malaysia, our hospitals have benefitted from the rapid growth of health insurance to a point where today nearly 70 per cent of our patients have coverage,” says Nate McLemore, managing director of Columbia Pacific Management. “It is a major shift, and by focusing on delivering value through high-quality care at affordable prices we are uniquely positioned to serve this newly insured population.”
Columbia Asia’s strategy is to create clusters of hospitals in large urban areas. This allows the firm to achieve operational and brand leverage across the market in each large city. Around the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur, for example, the company has five hospitals, a sixth to open in 2016 and a seventh to open in 2017.
“No other healthcare provider in Asia has hospitals in as many countries operating under a single brand,” says Daniel R Baty, the founder of Columbia Pacific Management, who conceived and designed the Columbia Asia hospital system more than 20 years ago. “We’re unique in the marketplace because all our hospitals operate under the same banner and the same standard of care.”
To manage the growth of Columbia Asia, John Northen was recently hired to serve as chief executive. Northen comes to the hospital network with several decades of experience in the hospitality industry, including six years as vice president for Marriott International in Southeast Asia and the Middle East.
