'IT In Healthcare Is A Necessity, Not An Add-On'

Dr Neena Pahuja, CIO, Max Healthcare, talks about the scope of IT in the healthcare sector and how women CIOs can add up to the value of a CIO profile.

What is the scope of IT at Max Healthcare? Does it help in day-to-day operations?

IT is an integral part of our operations. We leverage it for billing systems, planning, diagnostics etc. Deployment of advanced technologies like MRI scanning would not be possible without a robust IT system running in the background.

We have also implemented a Hospital Information Management System, which coupled with the recent outsourcing of our IT systems maintenance to Perot Systems, will help us in digitising our records. Essentially, all our records are paper-based but they will soon be digitised.

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I am also of the opinion that sharing of patient health records among healthcare institutions is the need of the hour. This will help us in building a national health record of our citizens and each time an individual gets hospitalised, there would be no need to do the same tests over and over again. This can lead to huge cost savings, both for hospitals and patients.

What are the other ways in which you see healthcare leveraging IT as a vertical?

Over the years, healthcare has seen tremendous uptake of IT systems and solutions and this is going to continue. As I myself have been a practitioner, I believe IT can have tremendous applications in the field of oncology. It can serve as an enabler.

Healthcare can also look to exploit the benefits that cloud computing offers. For example, a single MRI scan can be of a size up to 300 MB, which is huge. And there may be tens of such images (MRI scans) happening on a day-to-day basis per patient. Instead of storing them in your back-end, you can store them on the cloud and can even share it with other doctors/ specialists.

How do you think women CIOs can add value to the profile of a CIO?

Women bring in a different culture in whichever field they choose to work in. We also maintain a healthy work-home balance. Traditionally, we don’t see many females taking up this profession, but gradually we are seeing a change; more women are now taking up IT and technology as their prime subjects.

We often see in IT systems that everything might seem to work fine, but one minor niggle may put the whole system down. Women have a built-in capability to get to the root of the matter and fix it then and there. It is these qualities that add value to the profile of a CIO.

What trends do you see in the healthcare IT space?

I think the time has gone by when IT systems and solutions were considered a luxury and something only high-profile hospitals could afford; in the recent past, they have become a necessity. Even small hospitals have a Hospital Management System or a Hospital Information System installed at the least. So instead of just acting as an add-on, as it was previously, IT has now become an integral part of the healthcare delivery function.