CIOs Should Look Beyond IT To Move Up The Corporate Ladder

In a freewheeling chat with Biztech2.0, Sunil Kapoor, Executive Director, Fortis Escorts Hospital, Amritsar, shares his thoughts on the IT initiatives he helped to implement, and how CIOs can advance their careers by looking beyond IT.

How important is IT for the healthcare sector? Over time, how are hospitals providing enhanced healthcare services with the help of IT, while keeping the RoI factor in mind**?**

The healthcare sector has moved from one doctor or nurse providing direct medical services to patients, to a far different environment. Today, enterprises and corporate houses such as Fortis, Escorts and Max are entering the field to gain business benefit along with the aim to provide better medical services. IT adoption not only boosts RoI but also helps them manage hospital assets, provide better services, and gain improved margins. This obviously enables them to remain ahead of their competitors. Online prescriptions and enhanced quality of research in medicine and healthcare are some of the other benefits. It also helps them to provide high-end medical services, treat critically injured patients, and last but not the least, control human errors.

You had a long stint with Fortis Hospital in Delhi as a CIO. Could you tell us some of the initiatives taken under your guidance at Fortis?

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I joined Fortis as a CIO in 2000. As in other corporate hospitals, IT is an integral part at Fortis. At that time, the management was more interested in making the hospitals a paperless environment, from x-ray machines to prescriptions and medical records. So we introduced digital imaging. As Fortis is active in the multi-specialty healthcare segment, it also invested heavily in high-end medical equipment, of which IT is an integral part. We introduced a Smart Card access control system in our offices and cafeteria for employees.

In 2001-2002, a suitable Healthcare Information System (HIS) was not available in the market, so we decided to develop one through our internal IT team. We were successful, and now it is running in our hospitals. The HIS is comprehensive, and built keeping an eye on international standards. We have 600 access points in our hospital in Delhi, and we have deployed 2km of optical fiber cable. We are hungry for technology as far as our profits from the business are concerned, and we do this by leveraging these technologies.

What advice do you have for CIOs who are planning to move ahead of their present role and succeed?

CIOs should be inquisitive in nature while deploying any technology; they should think of everything affecting the business. If one is in a user industry, one has to live one’s life through business. CIOs should interact not only with the management to get approvals for IT investments, but also with each and every department of their organisation. As for my experiences, I gained in-depth exposure of various industries, which now helps me in my day-to-day life.

My role here at Fortis Amritsar is more akin to that of a COO; I have moved into the role of looking into the business. While I was working as a CIO, I was very close to business and had the inquisitive nature of knowing both processes and systems. My interactions with people and suppliers/vendors helped me learn many topics that are beyond IT. I feel CIOs should create the right environment for their team members to deliver the right things.

What difference in challenges do you face now, compared to when you were a CIO?

The challenges I faced as a CIO were totally different from my present challenges. At that time, challenges revolved around delivering projects on time, convincing management to implement applications, dealing with the internal IT team, and solving the problems of users. But now the challenges go much beyond these things – I have to think beyond the curve. Now I have to think about competition along with RoI and new business opportunities. I am enjoying this role as it provides different flavours of activities. I now have to look into managing the government regulations, while keeping an eye on society at large.