Having spent over a decade in the Healthcare industry now, Manisha Kumar has led and managed clinical and non-clinical teams in large hospital groups. She has been heading the Columbia Asia hospital for the last four years, which she commissioned from scratch and launched in 2017. Setting up a hospital piece by piece and turning it into a successful tertiary care center and a profitable business has been a truly heartening experience for her. Her key focus through the pandemic has been on arranging for critical resources, formulation of new operating clinical protocols and to keep the people on the ground motivated so that they treat patients with dedication and a positive attitude. Under her leadership, Columbia Asia Hospital is recognized as one of the best companies to work in the healthcare industry.

Kindly peruse the insightful excerpts from Manisha Kumar, Hospital Head & General Manager, and Columbia Asia Hospital.

How have you managed to lead the hospital through the covid pandemic; especially since you are on your way to being a mother very soon?

COVID pandemic has put us through extremely overwhelming times where our resources as well as people have been pushed to the edge. As a leader three things have been most pivotal in managing the crisis – 1) Thinking on feet to improvise solutions – starting from devising clinical protocols of triaging, testing and tracing every patient to building treatment and post treatment protocols, everything was chalked out and crystalized. 2) Secondly being proactive and thinking ahead for safety of patients and healthcare workers was important – this was extremely key in ensuring essential supplies of PPEs, medications, ventilators & equipment and liquid oxygen plant etc in the hospital were well planned and procured in time. 3) And finally building and sustaining trust with the ground teams in such times of uncertainty – It was important to keep constant channel of communication between myself and key team members and to remain closely connected with them.

I also always believe in maintaining a healthy work-life integration because compartmentalizing work from personal life is not realistic in our industry, even more during a crisis such as this one. I have worked hard to keep calm through all the chaos to be able to find solutions and pragmatically lead my team while keeping flexibility in my schedule to find time to disengage and relax. While working on weekends was inevitable, I was able to chalk up and divide work throughout the weekend to be able to have a less stressful Monday. It helped to prioritize tasks, triage matters, and thus delegate effectively.

Pregnancy is a huge blessing that happened to me during this time. I don’t think it’s a deterrent by any means and I feel lucky to have been able to accomplish all this while carrying to term! I did have to take more precautions concerning my diet, my workout routine, and my health and safety at the hospital and had to rework my day around all this – but all in all, I feel I could go on with my work unflinchingly and it only made me feel stronger than before.

“A true leader will recognize the need for innovation, adopt new systems and processes and get the entire team to follow the same.”

Going by your commendable experience of running a hospital throughout your pregnancy – what would be your message to other working women who are planning a pregnancy or are apprehensive about working through one?

My 2 cents would be to keep working as long as you can and as long it makes you happy. I derive a lot of satisfaction from the work that I do and from all that I did throughout my pregnancy during the Covid pandemic. Also, an active and happy mother will have a healthier baby too. I think pregnancy is one of the most natural phenomena and certainly not like a ‘condition’ to get bogged down by. It is crucial to keep a close watch on one’s health, eat right, exercise, and rework the daily schedule around this. I took extra precautions as I was running a hospital during Covid times and working up to my term date, and I felt a higher sense of fulfillment and achievement doing all that I did. Today women are rising the ranks across all industries and shattering glass ceilings every day, the whole idea of a woman giving up her career or taking a step back because of pregnancy is becoming a thing of the past. Working through pregnancy, and ever after it, requires more practical and disciplined planning of each day and multitasking and women are naturally hard-wired to accomplish this.

Drawing From Your Own Experience, What Are Some Essential Requisites One Requires To Flourish As A Leader In The Healthcare Sector In India. How Have These Traits Helped You?

In the healthcare sector, we need leaders who can help to raise awareness of important issues and champion innovative ideas while inspiring others to be a part of the overall process. As a leader, it is most important to define clear goals, set processes, and get all the teams together to work on achieving those goals. This requires vision, deft people management, and an ability to lead by example. In my work, while setting up and launching the hospital – it was imperative to align my teams behind our common goal and timelines and to work in the trenches with them many a time to keep them motivated. Open-mindedness and a learning attitude are two important traits of a good leader too as a one-size-fits-all approach seldom works in healthcare and leaders need to employ flexibility in addressing complex situations. Throughout the COVID pandemic management, we have learned every day and made every second day more fruitful and successful using that learning. We have adapted with whatever resources available at our disposal and found solutions to treat patients. Finally, healthcare leaders need to challenge the status quo and be innovative. I have championed innovative technology as a means to achieving greater efficiency: have implemented technology in most areas of our hospital to run the hospital as a paperless fully digitized set up from OPD to Emergency to in-patient records.

In your opinion, what steps can institutions and the industry, in general, take to promote greater participation of women in the workforce?

Organizations can begin with making gender equity a priority for hiring across all ranks and cadres. This in itself will challenge and gradually erase any unconscious biases existing in the system. Managers can help by scheduling networking, coaching, and mentoring opportunities for women that would help them take the next leap in their careers. Many women struggle with networking at the workplace and may lose out on opportunities for learning and growth because of this. Organizations should also have plans and policies to give flexibility to their female employees as and when and of course have policies and programs that ensure a positive, safe, and fair working environment for women. And equally so should try to create a community of women leaders inside the organization that can mentor and role model for all other aspiring female employees looking to succeed in their careers.

Manisha Kumar, Hospital Head & GM, Columbia Asia Hospital

As a business and administrative head of hospitals, Manisha Kumar not only keeps a laser-sharp focus to run a successful business with a healthy bottom-line but also draws a fine balance between managing people from clinical and non-clinical domains while keeping an eye on the quality of patient care.