BBC News - 'Production line' heart surgery (Video included, potential of low healthcare costs)

In a series of wards upstairs, heart patients are recovering from surgery and waiting to go home. The average cost of surgery here is a fraction of what it costs in the West, and patients come to Bangalore from all over the world.

The very poorest are never turned away either. Under a subsidised scheme, CS Manju Nath, a local man, had complex heart surgery here for next to nothing.

"I couldn't work because of illness," he says, sitting up in bed. "I used to get tired so easily. But I just didn't have the money for surgery. It's only because of this hospital that I could have an operation."

In other words, some patients are treated for a significant financial loss to the hospital. But the volume of operations is so large, that it still makes an overall profit.

Now Dr Shetty is expanding his business interests. He's building a new hospital in the Cayman Islands - a joint venture with the government there - designed to appeal to patients in nearby Florida who may not have full insurance cover.

And he says he's interested in creating a 'health city' in Britain as well, where he predicts costs could plummet.

"When one building and all the specialists in that building do only one procedure - that is taking care of the heart - obviously the results get better," he argues. "And the costs go down significantly.

"In the US a heart surgery costs perhaps 20 or 30 times what it costs here. We are able to do a complex heart surgery for $1,800 (£1,140), and we want to bring it down to $800."

He has been called the 'Henry Ford' of heart surgery. It is mass production, which appears to be a resounding success.

A simple business plan, but potentially quite revolutionary.

Could this be a vision of the future for health care, in Britain and around the world?

Specialists in one building...who woulda thunk...?!