We're setting up shared services to reduce gap in healthcare resources: Narayana Health’s Kumar KV

Narayan Healthcare (NH), one of India's largest healthcare chains with over 6,000 beds, has been on a journey to transform healthcare delivery, enhance patient experience, and drive positive outcomes by leveraging technology. The Bangalore-headquartered healthcare company founded by Devi Shetty in 2000 believes in having a strong technology backbone to cater to its customers round-the-clock. In an exclusive interaction with TechCircle, Kumar KV, Group Chief Information Officer (CIO), Narayana Health said that digital transformation is an ongoing journey for the Devi-Shetty founded group, without a destination. Kumar also stressed on the importance of creating a shared services team comprising technology, finance, supply chain, and more to provide affordable and quality healthcare in a country like India. Edited excerpts:

Which technologies are you most excited about for your organisation and overall healthcare sector?

In healthcare, I am excited about several emerging technologies that have the potential to transform the organisation and the sector as a whole. I will give you a few examples. One is the use of AI and machine learning. In use cases like clinical decision support systems, where generic or AI-powered systems can analyse patient data and medical literature to suggest various diagnoses, treatment plans, potential risks, and act as a secondary support system for clinicians to make informed decisions. Another field is medical imaging, where AI-based algorithms can analyse medical X-rays with a high degree of accuracy, assisting in early disease detection and diagnosis when trained on the right data and demographics. I am very excited to see how technologies like the Internet of Things and wearables, such as remote patient monitoring, can provide key markers for necessary interventions before patients even reach a hospital or doctor's office. This is something I am particularly enthusiastic about. Additionally, the integration of medical devices in hospitals, such as cardiac monitors, syringe pumps, and ventilators, into digital charts is a significant advancement. Utilising this data to derive insights and improve the quality of care, especially through mobile apps, is a project I am excited to see go live.

Is your company's tech budget growing this year? Is that number higher, lower, or the same as the last few years?

If you ask any healthcare CIO, they will likely say that budgets are lower. However, NH as an organisation takes a forward-looking approach. Instead of looking at budgets as a whole, we focus on business case-based budgeting. Every initiative we undertake is tied to a specific outcome, and we have a comprehensive approach to monitoring those outcomes to ensure that the technology investment pays off. We do not pursue tech initiatives just for the sake of it, and we have no pet projects. Our business case-based approach allows us to allocate the right budgets to initiatives that will benefit the business and deliver outcomes for our customers.

What areas in technology will be your focus this year and why?

Rather than focusing on specific technologies like blockchain, we are looking at transforming our entire back office, including finance, supply chain, and human resource (HR) processes. We have recently digitised our HR landscape and are partnering with Oracle for the Fusion platform to transform finance and supply chain operations. Additionally, we are focusing on our in-house health information platform,- electronic medical record (EMR) platform, to improve efficiencies, patient experience, and provide proactive resources to patients. Our advanced analytics and AI platform, with over 200 use cases deployed, is also a major focus for us this year. We are identifying new AI use cases to transform the way we operate and deliver services more efficiently and effectively.

How is your technology team structured? Are you planning to expand in the next year by hiring new talent or upskilling existing employees?

As a growing business, Narayana Health has expanded beyond healthcare into insurance and supply chain services. We have two main platforms, 'Athma' and 'Medha', which work together to drive efficiencies within the organisation. Our teams are structured in pods based on functions like clinical operations, business transformation, marketing, finance, supply chain, and HR. Each pod includes a mix of generalists and specialists, paired with product and engineering talent, to ensure effective collaboration and decision-making. With our business growing, we are focused on maintaining the right mix of resources and upskilling existing talent to support our expanding operations.

What kind of innovation are you bringing with technology as an enabler? Can you please highlight 1-2 cases where technology has helped improve business revenues or the customer experience for the company?

We have transformed many front office processes, starting from registration to discharge especially in the last 3-4 years. We are on the verge of transforming many areas when it comes to health information. However, the most challenging part for any enterprise is the back office functions, which also act as the backbone. This includes finance, supply chain, and HR. Let me share a quick story about the finance and supply chain transformation. We were using the traditional Oracle EBS platform, designed back in 2013. It no longer aligned with our current operational realities due to advancements in technology. Outdated processes led to inefficiencies and operational challenges. We had two large systems, our health information platform and the EBS platform, exchanging millions of records, causing costly reconciliation issues, delays, and other complications. We realised the urgent need to transform these functions and make them fit for the future. After a detailed analysis, we selected the Oracle Fusion software as a service platform, which is modern and flexible, addressing all our challenges and accommodating future demands. This mega transformation enables our functions to leapfrog in terms of digital maturity, from a scale of one or two to five, the highest level. We anticipate that this platform will address reconciliation issues, improve system performance, facilitate smoother month-end closings, and enhance planning and analysis capabilities without excessive customisation.

Where would you place your organisation in terms of its digital transformation journey, and how did you achieve that?

In terms of digital transformation, it's an ongoing journey without a specific destination. Our digital maturity is reflected in the work we've done for our patients, such as the NH care platform, allowing appointments, test bookings, viewing lab records, consultation summaries, online payments, bill viewing, immunisation tracking, and discharge automation. We aim to eliminate paper, reduce billing counters, and transition to a digital check-in and checkout process at the hospital. We've also transformed non-clinical areas like HR, focusing on employee engagement, compensations, recruitment, and onboarding. We are on the cusp of completely transforming finance and supply chain functions using Oracle Fusion cloud. We anticipate being more advanced than other healthcare providers next year due to our ability to execute technology initiatives faster, both in front office and back office areas.

When considering competitor benchmarking, which key technology areas do you believe require increased activity based on your peers' past actions?

I don't think we should simply extend past practices. Instead, we should focus on the future. While competition is important to consider, our primary goal is to maintain the health of our community. Our vision is to offer high-quality, affordable care to a wider population. With that in mind, I believe that investing in AI and ML technology is crucial. There is immense untapped potential in these areas that can greatly enhance the quality of care and improve efficiency for healthcare providers.

What is your technology vision for the next 2-3 year?

We believe establishing shared services is key in a country like India, where there is a significant gap in healthcare resources. By creating a healthcare shared services team that provides technology, finance, supply chain, and HR services, as well as nurse and doctor command centres, we can monitor and care for more patients efficiently across our organisation. This shared services model will not only benefit our business but also all legal entities and lines of business within our organisation. By focusing on efficiency gains through consolidation and standardisation across departments, we can reduce costs and streamline operations. This will allow us to explore new markets and service offerings, ultimately leading to savings that can be passed on to our patients. Collaboration with clinical and non-clinical functions will be essential in identifying opportunities for enhancing healthcare services and achieving our goal of providing affordable care.