Mass personalization in healthcare: insights and future research directions

Purpose - Purpose of this paper is to identify capabilities required for healthcare service providers to provide mass personalized services and to provide directions to conduct empirical studies to understand the phenomenon of mass personalization in Indian healthcare industry. Methodology/approach - The research is conducted by undertaking a literature review followed by field visits and interviews conducted at a leading healthcare service provider in India. Findings - There is limited empirical research on understanding the mass personalization capabilities in healthcare setting and empirical validation of the sand cone model and theory of competitive progression in the context of healthcare. Our interviews and field visits to Narayana Hrudayalaya ( NH) indicate that it is attempting to provide personalized services to a large number and variety of patients. By doing so, it is expected to improve on both resource and flow efficiencies at the same time and hence break the trade-offs between those. Literature review coupled with field visits and interviews help us in identifying key research questions related to mass personalization of healthcare in Indian healthcare industry. Originality/value - This study is one of the first attempts to understand this trade-off between resource and flow efficiency in the context of the Indian healthcare industry and to identify areas for future research. The unique characteristics of the Indian healthcare industry provide the ideal research setting to study this phenomenon. Literature review and our exploratory study have helped us in providing directions for future research in this unexplored area.