InFocus CXOs
Let me be honest - I am neither an AI evangelist nor a skeptic. I sit somewhere in the middle, and I think that is probably the most useful place to be if you are running hospitals and advising others who do the same.
When I am asked about AI in healthcare, the first thing I want to push back on is the framing. The conversation almost always gravitates toward replacement - will AI replace doctors; will it replace administrators? I think that is the wrong question. The right question is: where can AI sit alongside the people already doing this work and make them meaningfully better at it?
That is where I have found real value. Not in AI operating independently, but in AI collaborating.
Where We Actually Use It
In our group, one of the most practical ways AI has helped us is in building and refining SOPs - standard operating procedures. Writing an SOP sounds simple, but if you have ever tried to document how a ward admission should work, step by step, accounting for every room type and every staff role involved, you know it is painstaking. AI has made that process faster and sharper. We use it to structure our thinking, fill gaps we might have missed, and produce drafts that our teams then review and make their own.
The key phrase there is make their own. We are not printing AI-generated documents and calling them policy. We are using AI as a thinking partner - and then our people bring the contextual knowledge no model can replicate. What works in a VIP suite does not work in a general ward. That nuance lives with our team, not with any tool.
Beyond SOPs, AI has helped us streamline internal communication - how we frame messages to staff, how we structure reports, how we document processes consistently across our different businesses. For a group spanning hospitals, pharmacies, food services, and retail & industrial laundry, that consistency matters more than most people realise
AI has not made us dependent. It has made us more intentional - about how we communicate, how we document, and how we train.
The Readiness Problem Nobody Talks About
Here is what I see repeatedly in my consultancy work: hospital owners who want to adopt AI-enhanced tools, but whose organisations are simply not ready. And I mean structurally, not technically.
The majority of healthcare in India is delivered by small and medium-sized hospitals - this is not a niche; it is the mainstream. But most of these institutions are still doctor-dependent or owner-dependent. No structured reporting, no documented processes. Decisions flow through one or two people, and when those people are in the OT or out of station, the organisation stalls.
Introduce AI into that environment and it does not fix the chaos. It automates it. And that is worse, not better.
AI readiness starts with something far more fundamental: smart, structured teams. People are trained to think critically, use information to make decisions, and act without waiting to be told. Only on that foundation does technology deliver on its promise.
Teaching Teams to Think, Not Just Prompt
There is a concern I hear often - that AI will make people intellectually lazy. If a tool produces an answer in seconds, will people stop developing the thinking muscle to arrive there themselves? We take that seriously.
Our approach has been to focus on teaching the skill of prompting - which is really the skill of thinking clearly and asking precise questions. A bad prompt produces a useless output. Recognising a bad output requires you to already know something. So using AI well is a discipline of thinking well.
We have also started onboarding our teams onto software with AI-enhanced features - our HMIS, HR and payroll systems. The goal is not to have them marvel at the technology. The goal is to have them reach for it naturally and know enough to evaluate what comes back.
The Road Ahead
The road ahead is genuinely exciting. As a clinician, I have watched AI begin to show real promise in clinical decision support - helping physicians cross-check diagnoses, flag drug interactions, and surface patterns across patient data that would take a human hour to identify. These are areas where a second layer of intelligence, applied carefully, can meaningfully reduce error and improve outcomes without ever replacing the judgment of the doctor at the bedside.
Equally, the integration of AI into Hospital Information Systems is starting to move process optimisation from a manual exercise to a continuous, data-driven one - whether that is bed management, pharmacy dispensing workflows, or OT scheduling. These are not distant possibilities. They are arriving. And for hospitals that have done the foundational work - the structured teams, the documented processes, the right software infrastructure - they will be genuinely transformative. For those that have not, they will be one more expensive tool that never quite delivers.
What I Would Say to a Hospital Owner or Healthcare Leader
If you are running an independent hospital and feeling the pressure to go digital - start with the organisation, not the technology. Get your processes documented. Build a reporting structure. Develop your middle managers. Create a culture where your team brings solutions rather than only problems.
Once that foundation exists, even partially, technology finds its footing naturally. Because AI does not transform broken systems - it amplifies whatever is already there. Build something worth amplifying first.
The institutions that will benefit most from this era are not the ones that adopt AI the fastest. They are the ones that prepare their people and their processes well enough to use it wisely.
The Journey Into Industry
Dr. Shravan Khetan is a healthcare entrepreneur and business leader with exemplary expertise in hospital management, healthcare operations, and healthcare entrepreneurship. As Managing Director of SHPL Group of Companies, he oversees a diverse portfolio that includes Shravan Hospital & Kidney Institute, Pugalia Nursing Home, pharmacy operations, healthcare consulting, food services, and apparel care businesses. He holds an MBBS degree, an MBA in Healthcare Management from Anglia Ruskin University, UK, a MicroMasters in Business Management from IIM Bangalore, and an Executive Development Program in Strategic HR Management from IIM Visakhapatnam. Recognized with the Healthcare Entrepreneur Award 2025, Dr. Khetan is committed to strengthening independent and SME hospitals through operational excellence, systems design, and sustainable healthcare innovation across Tier 2 India.
