A Disruptive Approach to Fixing Mexico’s Visual Health
Imagine your life without the sense of sight. Imagine the implications of losing your sight for you and those around you. In the world today, more than 280 million people are visually impaired, the majority are 50 years or older and suffer losses of productivity and independence. Astonishingly, 80 percent of all visual impairment and blindness cases are preventable.
Mexico is a country with 240 million eyes, of which 60 percent cannot see properly.
A developing country with stretched resources, Mexico’s government cannot provide necessary services to the entire population. Additional efforts, mostly via the private sector, have developed to satisfy demand and eliminate preventable blindness. Disruptive innovation in the health sector in health sector is Mexico’s for tackling its staggering backlog and future cases. Regarding eye care, the most prominent barriers people encounter in seeking treatment are three: information, geographic, and economic. The patient alone cannot tackle these barriers. The participation of different stakeholders, including government entities, private enterprises, large corporations, and individuals, is necessary to create systemic change.
salauno is one such stakeholder. The social enterprise seeks to give Mexico’s underserved back their eyesight and change their everyday lives. Its mission is to eliminate obstacles and provide quality eye care services at accessible prices for marginalized communities. It started with an idea and a trip to India. The two CEOs, Javier Okhuysen and Carlos Orellana, sought a scalable and profitable project with a social impact. They thoroughly studied Aravind, an Indian nonprofit and the largest eye care hospital in the world, and its path to success.
Achieving lower costs than the competition was possible through a model that leveraged economies of scale, a vertically integrated supply chain, and medical innovation in surgical procedures.
At its inception, the core business was cataract surgeries, but today salauno has expanded procedures to include retina complications, refractive surgery, and pterigium surgeries, among others.
Applying Toyota principles of lean and efficient procedures, salauno’s model and operations ensure an efficient flow of patients throughout the process and offers the lowest prices. This approach helps patients save not only their economic resources, but also another invaluable currency at the base of the pyramid: time.
Today, with a strong network of alliances and a hub and spoke business model, it not only treats eye problems but also promotes prevention. It is imperative for society to actively seek eye care constantly in order to prevent unnecessary blindness.
Through a series of low-cost consultations and preliminary studies, salauno helps reduce preventable disorders before they even arise.
Accessibility is key. salauno strives to transform health services in Mexico and reach the people who need them the most. While its focus is visual health, its model can be replicated across the health spectrum. Its success is an invitation for entrepreneurs disrupt and help break down barriers to public health in order to have a healthier, happier world.
Carlos Orellana Aguilar and Javier Okhuysen Urrutia are the co-founders of salauno.
