CIO,Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre
Insight of My Company and its IT Strategies Rajiv Gandhi Cancer Institute & Research Centre is the largest oncology care centre in north India. It has all the facilities that patients need under a single roof. It started operations in 1996 and has treated more than 1,40,000 patients so far as on March 2012. We undertook IT transformation program in 2010 and are still working towards it. We have data centre with 12 production servers running HIS, EHR and PACS systems. Entire building is connected through LAN and Wireless. The next steps are to build hierarchical storage management, back-up, Disaster Recovery, MS-Exchange based e-mail system and then go for virtualization. Views on new technologies These are great technologies having potential of increasing ROI tremendously. Virtualization reduces the need for hardware and cloud goes further as one does not need to buy full stack of servers and host them. Professional DC service providers can use leveraged model to host the data and applications in a central place. The only expenditure is on data communication between cloud and the user base. Resources to Keep Updated with Latest Technologies Magazines, websites, forums and networking are the best ways to keep updated. I am part of Great CIO association, Read CIO & Leader magazine regularly.
Team Size My team is about 14 in total. A lot of work is outsourced. I work closely with vendors in managing applications. Biggest Pain Point HIS and EHR implementation is underway. Production issues in applications are the biggest pain points. The defects pointed out by users take time to be fixed and there are release management issues. Technology to Address Pain Points Technology will help improving release management process but that is in the hands of vendors. Slowdown Impact on IT Innovation Yes. Slowdown squeezed budgets and out of the box thinking was required.
Challenges Faced Information security is the biggest challenge. We have not experienced any threats so far, but are aware of it and are making all efforts to prevent any lapses. Role of Cloud Cloud has great potential in improving information security at the same time it is also a great threat. It needs to be properly thought through and implemented. We currently are not on cloud but eventually we will be there.
Expenses on IT Systems Nearly Rs. 3 Crores a year.
IT Budget Upgrading Plan It will increase if the institute expands. Expansion is on the cards. IT Leader – Manager First or Technologist First The IT leader must know at least the current trends and be aware of what is out there in the market. He need not know the nitty-gritty of the technology. However, he must be a great manager as there are always several streams running in parallel and any bottlenecks may affect overall organizational growth. ROI on the Technology Return is mostly intangible. Difficult to measure in quantitative figures.
Relationship Between CIOs and CEOs CIO is the closest advisor and most trusted lieutenant of the CEO. His role is not only limited to keep IT systems in good shape and running. He is responsible for effective transformation of technology, processes and workforce. Advice/ Suggestion CIOs lead the nerve center of their respective organizations. They need to be willing to take the responsibility to shape the future of the organization. CEO represents the present and CIO represents the future of the organization. Be restless, be always on the lookout for what is out there in the marketplace and pick and choose whatever best suits the business. CIO cannot afford to relax as technology is changing face every day. At the same time, it is not wise to collect all the junk from the marketplace. Penny saved is penny earned.
