Kokilaben Hospital: Making Patients Life Easier Date:   Monday , July 01, 2013 Rajesh Batra has logged over 22 years in Information Technology in various capacities of which over five years is in the Healthcare sector. He has been involved in strategizing IT for Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital and the implementation thereof from the scratch making it more hunky dory. The evolution- Then and Now There was a time when hospitals didn’t invest in IT, but today they don’t see it as a challenge rather a part of their strategy to grow. Things have evolved with a jet speed in the past few years. Few years back the industry lacked one such technology that was able to run a hospital from start to end. Back office needed a separate system. But technology has come a long way since and has become more intelligent. With HIS (Hospital Information System) which is the life blood of technology at Kokilaben Hospital, I just need couple of systems to run it. Through HIS, all the information about patients is interfaced in a single point of information, starting from the time when the patient walks in the hospital to the time he goes out and also generates the bill. Innovation is quite an infant Hospitals are yet to realize technology as an integral part of their system. However, a handful of them already have enhanced their IT to provide maximum transparency along with convenience to the patients. We need a much robust one that could reduce the headaches of the patients. As the CIO of the hospital, I am inclined to make the patient’s life easier. Gone are the days when hospitals were scared of IT, today IT has armored us in expanding our service offerings to our patients. The touch points for the patients have decreased. But yet technology is in its infant, the providers have to come up with solutions and products that are more robust and industry specific and able to reduce the reporting time from hours to minutes. Challenges yet to overcome Hospitals are a complex eco system and foreign healthcare solutions providers lack the insights on Indian healthcare industry and its need making it a struggle for CIOs to deal with vendors. No single vendor can provide with a single solution for a hospital. They need to come out with cost conscious solutions so that we don’t pass them to our patients. Security concern Ever since the hospitals were in the paper and pen documentation, security and privacy had always been a concern for patients. The security of the report could be breached by the number of persons through whom it travelled to the patients. But with HIS and other technical solutions, we are able to guarantee security to our patients. The confidentiality of the data is now much better than what it used to be earlier. It is important to understand that hospitals need to spend a lot on technology but also has to stretch the dollar to the last dot to avoid overburdening patients. (As told to Anamika Sahu)