Yahoo Finance UPDATE 1-Providence Health beefing up India workforce to serve more clients
(Rewrites paragraph 1; adds job creation details)
By Leroy Leo
HYDERABAD, Feb 26 (Reuters) - U.S. hospital chain Providence Health will more than double its India headcount to 3,500 people next year as it ties up with more hospital operators to provide services such as bolstering cybersecurity and helping doctors manage their paperwork.
The tie-ups will help generate a new revenue stream for the not-for-profit hospital operator, which reported net operating losses in each of the first three quarters of 2023.
Providence's facility in the southern India city of Hyderabad currently employs around 1,400 people.
About 65% of the employees will be working on services for the company's clients, while the rest will focus on Providence, Chief Information Officer BJ Moore said.
The Renton, Washington-based company, which operates more than 50 hospitals in the United States, was already using its Hyderabad facility as a hub for operations such as technology, human resources and finance.
"To do it all by yourself inside of your shop, even if you're a bigger health system, makes no sense at all," CEO Rod Hochman told Reuters.
"What we're saying is why wouldn't you outsource and in-source that to a company that's already (in) healthcare?" Hochman said.
Providence has already hired around 70 people to provide some of those services to U.S. healthcare firm AdventHealth and is in talks with more healthcare service providers. It did not disclose its investment in the Hyderabad facility. (Reporting by Leroy Leo in Hyderabad; Editing by Sonia Cheema and Shilpi Majumdar)
