Fortis To Deploy Clinical Business Intelligence

In order to provide better healthcare services to its customers, Fortis Healthcare is taking aggressive IT initiatives. In a detailed discussion with Biztech 2.0, Manish Gupta, CIO, Fortis Healthcare Limited, talks about the upcoming IT projects at Fortis.

How has IT simplified the complexities of providing healthcare services at Fortis?

Healthcare is a unique field with its own challenges. Healthcare in India is yet to adopt systemisation. In this field, it is the doctors and nurses, who are the actual users of IT. Indian medical professionals have to given IT training as they are either freshers or have limited knowledge about upcoming technologies. These users have to follow certain processes and mechanisms as defined by the management. It should not be a fragmented approach.

At Fortis, we have aimed to standardise our processes through IT so that our patients don’t have to suffer in subsequent visits. We have 13 hospitals with a total of 2,000 beds and 1,000 doctors on duty. Around 10,000 employees are serving at these hospitals. It is a very human intensive industry and also a very sensitive industry.

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We are trying to improve patient care through the use of IT. I have good control over the services doled out to patients through our systems. We drive IT to smoothen the process of patient discharge, which is the most complicated process at hospitals. Starting from the running of the blood bank to the cafeteria, IT is helping us 24/7. IT is also helping to run the back end systems of the hospitals.

What are the updates on connecting all Fortis hospitals into a single network?

A hospital typically runs like a big industry. The main challenge that arises is the centralisation of all systems and processes. We want to centralise in order to standardise our bottom line processes. We are also implementing lots of strategic projects and engaging doctors, nurses and technicians in the same. The processes we are trying to standardise include purchasing, doctors’ engagement and inter-hospital patient transfer. We are also putting all the information related to patients in a central repository system. Our future plans constitute deployment of clinical business intelligence. This will also help our R&D efforts.

How is the deployment of EMR and PACS helping Fortis to serve patients in a better way?

We have deployed an EMR system four years back. We have tied up with an Australian company called Track for the same. Though almost all hospitals have deployed EMR solutions, the thing to watch is how much data you are capturing through it and how much are you sharing with other hospitals. We have also deployed EHR, which captures health records. At this stage, we have tried to connect our EMR with other devices for easy access and we are now looking at sharing our records with other hospitals that are a part of our network. We also want to correlate this to clinical pathways for proper disease management.

Coming to PACS (Picture Archival Communications), this is also an important solution for any hospital. The challenges are different here. In a hospital, the largest amount of data is generated through pictures. Medical imaging technology is advancing quickly. The main challenge revolves around storing pictures. We have chosen GE as our PACS vendor. We have deployed PACS in about three hospitals and are now looking at an enterprise PACS solution to centralise the whole process. We are using a flexible PACS system at Fortis. Currently, we are working with the vendor to develop the system. For successful PACS deployment, we have to change the mindset of the doctors and encourage them to reduce the use of films.

Are mobile and wireless technologies helping the healthcare industry in general and Fortis in particular?

In healthcare, the use of mobile and wireless devices is important as the doctors and nurses are always on the move. We are in discussion with certain service providers to evaluate the facilities that we can provide to our staff through mobile phones. The doctors could view various test reports and images through their cell phones while the caretakers can check the biometric authentication of patients inside hospitals through their mobile devices. The possibilities are endless. I have prepared a list of 12 facilities, which we plan to deploy through mobile phones. In the larger public sphere too, healthcare will be driven by mobile devices in the years to come.

What are the challenges you face as a CIO?

There is an operational side to a CIO’s role whereby efficiency of systems has to be maintained. This can either be outsourced or managed internally. We have a mix of both at Fortis. The second challenge is with regard to MIS. We have to cater to the MIS requirements of the company. My role here is more that of a clinical information office and less that of a chief information officer. I need to have all the information on the tips of my fingers, as my doctors and nurses may require any information at any point of time.

I want to develop a mobile solution that can help my doctors and nurses keep tabs on the health condition of patients without physical movement. As a part of the healthcare industry, we should also aim to deliver something to the society at large by encouraging public-private partnership. On this front, we are planning to develop a public healthcare information portal. Earlier, there were two IT teams at Fortis, however, I have now fragmented them into three teams and made one responsible for clinical technology. This team takes care of PACS and other clinical devices.

Can you elaborate your IT strategy?

The basic strategy of our company is to provide healthcare services to needy patients and our IT strategy revolves around this. IT has a three dimensional role to play in the functioning of Fortis Healthcare. It provides the right kind of clinical technology, the right kind of maintenance for patient records and finally the right kind of information management capability.

Last year Fortis tied up with Microsoft to provide better healthcare services with the help of IT. How has this helped Fortis?

We have an engagement with Microsoft as an enterprise customer. We have recently launched Fortis Intranet and developed other solutions also using Microsoft platforms. We have plans to upload a medical library and case studies on the Intranet alongwith information related to healthcare.

Recently, Microsoft has acquired some companies, which have products directly related to the healthcare industry. We are now evaluating those products. We do not share a typical vendor customer relationship with Microsoft; we intend to work with them to develop new solutions collaboratively.