Healthcare: IT Heals

The PD Hinduja National Hospital and Medical Research Center is a modern multi-speciality tertiary care hospital with a medical research center set up in collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Boston. The hospital has to its credit, the ISO 27001 certification for IT management systems. Recently, as it completed 60 years of operations, Hinduja Hospital was awarded the best multi-speciality hospital in the India Healthcare Awards 2011.

Under the Scanner

In 2011, the IT department implemented a solution to convert speech to text for the radiology department. Approximately 75% of time taken in dealing with patient's reports was reduced. As the implementation directly captured the report dictated by the doctor, it enabled to save time required to check copies that were dictated to typists. "After tasting success in this implementation, we are in the phase of implementing digital signatures," informs Mahesh Shinde, director, IT and telecom, Hinduja Hospital.

Success is also riddled with challenges. In order to ensure success of the implementation, the doctors had to be trained and the system had to be tuned 100% to the Indian accent through daily training sessions. Even the IP telephony that was implemented last year was upgraded to a new version. "Earlier it was a different version, but now the version is a much acceptable one. This implementation has enabled cost savings on the cabling part, enables conferences, etc," quips Shinde.

Even the implementation of 'Zimbra mailing solutions' enabled mirroring of mails, offered a variety of features, recovery of mails for VIP (top management), etc. "It enables sharing of folders, scheduling of calendars, user-friendly, etc. This solution is implemented on an open-source platform, is user-friendly, and is enabled with social features like Twitter, Facebook, etc, which still have not been enabled. We are in the process of rolling out new features and also conducting training programs for the employees. In March 2011, we became the first hospital to receive the ISO 27001:2005 Information Security Certification," informs Shinde.

Road Ahead

If there is a new technology offering, even if it is 70-80% utilized, then it can be said that it is successfully implemented. Hinduja Hospital sets aside 2-3% of its budget for IT implementation. Talking about the future plans, he says, "We do have the required skill, but there is a lack of domain knowledge. But since there are no offerings specifically catering to the healthcare segment, we are trying to fit what others have successfully implemented in healthcare. In the future, things are expected to turn our way as it is expected that there would be special offerings catering to the healthcare segment."