Listen to this articleThe basics:
- Princeton-based CitiusTech marks 20 years of health care IT innovation
- Company enhances offerings with AI, cloud, modern software
- Recent acquisitions strengthen digital transformation capabilities
- CitiusTech continues global expansion and workforce training focus
Founded 20 years ago in Mumbai, India, CitiusTech was built on the idea of providing health care organizations with technology that addresses the sector’s many unique challenges.
As a complex industry, health care faces numerous obstacles, such as fragmented data systems, strict regulatory requirements, rising costs and a shift toward value-based care. At the same time, providers and insurers are dealing with workforce shortages, cybersecurity threats and pressure to modernize outdated technology. And that is all playing out as patients are increasingly demanding a more seamless digital experience that includes telehealth, personalized apps and online scheduling.
As the sector continues to embrace technology, CitiusTech has made it a point to invest in proprietary platforms and repeatable solutions to address industry needs such as value-based performance, technology modernization, patient engagement, medical imaging and digital health transformation.
Over the past two decades, the company – which has its U.S. base in Princeton – has become one of the most influential players in the global health care technology space, offering next-generation technologies, solutions, and products that reshape how care is delivered and paid for.
A leading health care IT and digital transformation company, CitiusTech helps over 140 hospitals, insurers, medical technology businesses and life sciences firms worldwide leverage data, artificial intelligence, cloud computing and modern software to offer better patient care, streamline operations and meet regulatory demands.
CitiusTech Executive Vice President Shyam Karunakaran said, “From 2005 onwards, we’ve seen so many technological transformations. When CitiusTech was founded, we didn’t even have iPhones yet. Since then, we’ve seen at least three levels of transformational technology infusion into the market. Many things have changed in the company in 20 years, but the only thing that has not changed is the original vision that we don’t want to do anything outside of health care.”
Connecting the dots
“There are many companies who would claim that there are product companies and there are consulting shops who also have a health care space. But I think our ability to connect the dots across the health care ecosystem on technology disruption and the investments that we make is pretty much the differentiation that we have,” he said.
Karunakaran – who joined CitiusTech in 2009 – said, “The vision for the company was always how can we help reimagine? How can we help accelerate health care technology disruption? It’s not been an easy thing for any health care organization.”
“How we can implement technology in a faster, better, cheaper way has been our focus and will continue to be our focus. We may expand geographically, we may go out into some other markets. As we grow as an organization, we may start doing more and more types of work for health care entities. But the primary goal has not changed in 20 years.”
“Specialization has been our mantra and something that has been ingrained in our culture,” he said. “There are many successful companies that do many things in a generalized fashion … but forward-looking disruptions are the ability to layer on top of trends. So, specialization in a specific area and then overlaying things is an important facet of what we do.”
Key focus areas include:
- Data management & analytic — helping organizations manage and analyze large volumes of clinical, financial and operational data
- Application/product engineering — designing, building and modernizing software solutions for the health care domain
- AI & cloud integration — moving organizations to cloud platforms with AI/ML and scaling for the health care context
As a result of its efforts, CitiusTech’s innovations are helping health systems better predict patient needs, supporting payers with value-based care analytics, and enabling medtech companies to bring new devices and digital tools to market faster.
Expanding capabilities
In recent years, the company has completed a series of major acquisitions to expand its capabilities, such as:
Most recently, in August, CitiusTech acquired Health Data Movers, a North Carolina venture known for its expertise in electronic medical records and health care IT integration.
Financial details for the four acquisitions were not disclosed.
CitiusTech CEO Rajan Kohli described the latest deal as a “pivotal moment and huge opportunity” as the two companies aim to “meet the demands of a rapidly transforming health care landscape.”
“This partnership strengthens CitiusTech’s position as a strategic partner across the health care ecosystem. By bringing Health Data Movers’ Epic implementation and integration expertise into CitiusTech’s portfolio, this partnership has the ability to operate at the very core of the Epic ecosystem, solving some of health care’s most critical challenges,” he said.
Karunakaran said, “They are essentially focused on implementing Epic for provider systems … Epic is the EHR [electronic health record] that has the highest market share in the U.S. across the board. And it is an important capability for us when we look at clinical data provider focus.”
“We already have a really good provider business, but bringing in Epic was an important capability that we wanted to add to our suite of offerings,” he said.
Value add
When it comes to the many ways in which the overall health care space is undergoing a shift, Karunakaran cited AI as the most transformational change.
“It is the technology of the future. I think it’s a no-brainer. Nobody’s going to argue that. The complexity and the gradient is only going to increase … can you imagine what it would be capable of doing five years from now – or even two years from now?” he said. “And if there is an industry that should really benefit from that kind of technology disruption it’s health care. I think from a focus and the mission perspective … I think there is an opportunity to improve use cases and I think we have started seeing a good amount of production implementation.”
One recent use case outcome showed how AI can reduce the amount of time a nurse needed to review clinical charts from an hour to just under 15 minutes.
Karunakaran said, “We are focused on how we can help the physician or nurse decide better and decision support – not decision making … What goes into building a use case such as this one, you need to be able to look at multiple different types of charts, multiple different types of patient notes, etc., and come up with system of how we could read through the charts, what kind of data do you expect from the charts, and then there is an expectation of, ‘Hey, what are the kind of questions that the individual would ask of this data?’”
“So, that’s truly adding value to the care delivery ecosystem. If you turn the clock back two, three years back immediately post COVID, I think one of the biggest hits on the care delivery side of things was lack of availability from physicians and nurses and the entire clinical staff,” he said.
“You can have all kinds of administrative staff on the hospital side, but without the clinicians, nurses and physician assistants, there is no productivity improvement. It’s always going to be constrained. A 60% improvement in one use case is actually a perfect example for a value realized on the capabilities side,” he said.
CitiusTech: How AI Is Reducing Clinician Burnout in Home Healthcare:
Looking ahead
In addition to several offices across the U.S., CitiusTech has dozens of locations worldwide in countries such as India, the U.K., Singapore, Poland, Switzerland and Dubai.
Princeton has been home to the company’s U.S. headquarters since 2011. It’s also where most of the executive leadership team sits.
Karunakaran noted that the office at 2 Research Way was the first that CitiusTech opened stateside.
“I think Princeton is a wonderful town to be associated with. It is a town that is rich in history and tradition, which is really important for us. We see a lot of health care, life sciences and research talent here. Affiliating and associating ourselves with the Princeton community has been super helpful for us,” he said.
Karunakaran noted that the office at 2 Research Way was the first that CitiusTech opened stateside.
I think Princeton is a wonderful town to be associated with. It is a town that is rich in history and tradition, which is really important for us.
– Shyam Karunakaran, CitiusTech EVP
As a company with over 7,700 employees worldwide, Karunakaran said one of the biggest challenges is making sure its workforce remains skilled.
“We are an organization that grows 20% year on year … And our attrition is low, but the reality is 35% of the organization is new every year,” he explained. “Our focus is to build an organization that is heavily deep in health care capability and health care technology understanding and so on and so forth. So, there is a challenge that we consistently need to overcome.”
“It’s not easy to hire only health care talent. If your workforce is changing 35%, maybe one-third will come with health care background. So, our focus is on training and grooming and getting the remaining 25% and the 10% that come with health care background trained on relevant topics,” he explained, adding that CitiusTech developed its own online open course training ecosystem 15 years ago.
“That is an integral investment to ensure that we are focused on health care,” he said.
