The Hindu Business Line : CBay to upgrade India centres

NOTWITHSTANDING the clamour against outsourcing of information technology projects to India, CBaySystems Ltd of the US has decided to upgrade some of its 37 centres in India to `mega centres' to deliver "client-ready" medical transcription packs.

The first of the mega centres has been set up here. "The other mega centres will come up at Bangalore, Chennai, New Delhi and Ahmedabad by May next," Mr V. Raman Kumar, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of CBaySystems, told Business Line.

In the next two and half years, the company's Indian arm would have a headcount of 10,000 and cross the $100-million mark from the present $35 million. The five-year-old company was growing at 70-80 per cent annually.

Asked about the growing opposition in the US to outsourcing IT projects to India, he said the availability of medical transcription professionals was low and the number was falling there.

The $18-billion medical transcription industry was faced with a shortage of human resources there, while more than 6,700 hospitals were scrambling to meet Federal certification requirements.

"The availability of medical transcription professionals is falling by 10 per cent. This is largely because of the difficulty involved when compared to other professions," he said.

CBaySystems, a leading provider of healthcare business process outsourcing services, outsourced 95 per cent of its projects to its Indian centres.

Ckar Systems, the Hyderabad centre acquired from Karvy Consultants, would have 1,200 staff by the end of 2004.

The recent acquisition of Emergency Dictation Software Systems of Hyderabad got 120 medical transcription professionals for the Hyderabad mega centre, Mr Raman Kumar said.