KPJ Healthcare Berhad (KPJ) and Microsoft Malaysia (Microsoft) announced that the Malaysia homegrown and largest healthcare group has chosen to implement Microsoft’s Office 365 and Cloud solutions to upgrade and modernize its overall IT infrastructure for its entire network of hospitals in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, KPJ is one of the leading private healthcare providers in the region, with ambitious expansion plans for its integrated health and wellness services portfolio. Embarking on many initiatives to improve the quality of care for patients, KPJ faced a major challenge to identify and implement an effective IT infrastructure across its hospitals that will enable it to make vital management decisions.
“From a business perspective, managing IT expenses for an expanding network of hospitals was a huge problem for us as each new hospital’s IT deployment was previously done in isolation,” said Dr. Mubbashir Iftikhar, Chief Information Officer of KPJ Healthcare Berhad. “Consolidating licensing procurement and administration was another issue as most OEM purchases were decentralized for users in different subsidiaries and locations.”
Existing IT policies also proved to be a stumbling block to improving productivity. “There was a mismatch of solutions that were deployed across our hospitals – from the backend datacenter all the way to client-facing applications. Our own datacenter was set up on the VMware platform to host our Hospital Information Technology System and Clinical Information System; the hospital network’s email system was running a mix of different solutions on Google Apps and open source; the standardization of Office support for in-ward applications; and our overall desktop strategy needed to be managed more efficiently. All this pointed to the need for a more streamlined deployment and management of IT,” added Dr. Iftikhar.
In a statement, KPJ said it turned to Microsoft to overcome these challenges and found a complete end-to-end as well as cost-effective solution, employing a hybrid of on-premise and cloud-based solution. KPJ plans to upgrade its datacenter from VMware onto Microsoft’s Private Cloud platform. The Group will also deploy 5,200 Microsoft Office 365 and 2,800 Pro Desktop licenses across its hospital network.
“It was paramount that we selected a solution that is flexible and scalable because we are very determined in our strategy of expanding our network of hospitals. The fact that Microsoft has a comprehensive, easy-to-deploy solution that seamlessly integrates into our current infrastructure made it a very easy choice for us,” said Dr. Iftikhar, adding that, “IT management has become streamlined for both our cloud and on-premise licenses, which also comes with excellent long-term customer support post-deployment. We can now look to Microsoft as a trusted technology partner that we can call upon for new strategic initiatives and projects we want to implement.”
Commenting on the partnership, Abhijit Das, Acting Small and Midmarket Solutions and Partners Lead for Microsoft Malaysia, said, “We are proud that KPJ Healthcare has chosen Microsoft as its preferred technology partner to transform healthcare in Malaysia. Healthcare is one of the National Key Economic Area (NKEA) of the country’s Economic Transformation Program and this partnership with one of the leading healthcare providers in the region is a clear sign that all the industry players are doing their part to help transform Malaysia together.”
He elaborated, “KPJ is showing true thought leadership in adopting a holistic approach that enables the Group to not only deliver top-notch healthcare services for all Malaysians, but also improved communication and collaboration between its hospitals.”
KPJ currently has a network of 23 hospitals – 21 hospitals in Malaysia and 2 in Indonesia. With more than 3,000 licensed beds under its management, KPJ offers comprehensive medical services, and have treated more than 2.4 million outpatients and 240,000 inpatients in 2011 alone. KPJ has been publicly listed on the KL Stock Exchange since 1994, with revenues reaching RM1.9 billion in 2011.