Here’s why Malaysian healthcare drastically needs to adapt digital technology

Mahenthiran Thanapal, director of business operations at Prince Court Medical Centre, believes this will mitigate rising healthcare costs in the country.

A seasoned healthcare professional with over 28 years of experience under his belt, Mahenthiran Thanapal was the general manager of diagnostic and allied health services of Prince Court Medical Centre before he became the hospital’s director of business operations.

Having vast clinical experience with special interest in Medical Imaging and Interventional Cardiology, Mr Mahenthiran’s interest is in strategic management and is now currently spearheading the business turnaround at Prince Court Medical Centre geared towards transforming the private healthcare experience.

Mahenthiran Thanapal has also completed the Senior Management Development Program by the Harvard Business School.

Mahenthiran Thanapal is a panelist for the topic ‘Modernising Malaysia’s Healthcare Skills and Facilities’ at the upcoming Kuala Lumpur leg of the upcoming inaugural Healthcare Asia Forum 2016 this Thursday. Here’s more about Mahen:

HCA: What are your previous experiences and positions held that contributed to who you are today as a healthcare practitioner?

I have had extensive clinical training and vast exposure to Medical Imaging and Interventional Cardiology in the past. Subsequent to completing my MBA with specialization in Healthcare Management, I have gone into hospital administration and am now the Chief Operating Officer of the hospital. I have held the posts of General Manager of Diagnostic & Allied Health Services and Head of Radiology & Nuclear Medicine Services in the past.

Having worked in both public and private healthcare sectors, it has given me sufficient experience and insights into the various processes and pertinent issues that revolve around healthcare. It has also provided me an excellent opportunity to use the skills acquired in developing a model healthcare organization that has a global appeal, besides raising the standard of the Malaysia healthcare sector.

HCA: What are your key healthcare philosophies and ideologies?

We at Prince Court Medical Centre aim to be the leading healthcare provider in Asia. We are fully aware of the challenges ahead when we crafted this vision and have been doing everything that is needed to position ourselves as such. It is paramount therefore, that we offer the highest standard in healthcare practice that is evidence based and at the same competitively priced.

We want Malaysians at large to enjoy quality healthcare right at home, that are benchmarked against the best in the world. We want to be pacesetters in healthcare technology and offer the latest treatment options that combines with the best clinical expertise available. Although being in the private healthcare sector, it is not always about achieving returns on investment or ROI, it is about meeting patient expectations in terms of their experience.

Our ideology is to provide the ultimate in patient experience and that the patient journey is both holistic and enriching. We also would want to be seen as the place for the best in class doctors to practice medicine with sufficient clinical freedom and state of the art technology at their disposal.

HCA: Can you give us a glimpse of what you will talk about at the 2016 Healthcare Asia Forum?

I will be talking on the need for the Malaysian Healthcare sector to leapfrog into digital technology since the way certain activities are currently done is going to drastically change with the advent of technology. Hospitals can move away from investing heavily into IT hardware to the use of digital apps that readily work on iPads and tablet PCs while data can be stored in “Clouds”.

Booking of doctors, scheduling of appointments, billing procedures and even charting clinical notes can all be done by the use of apps and this will be a major transformation in the way healthcare is practiced. As the cost of private healthcare in the country has escalated quite drastically with the weakening ringgit and falling patient volume, it is crucial therefore, that private hospitals continue to look at ways and means to manage their costs.