In this edition of “The Most Influential Leader in Healthcare,” we crossed our paths with Dr R. Kishore Kumar, the Chairman of Cloudnine Hospitals, whose journey to revolutionise maternity and new-born care in India, on par with international standards, is noteworthy.

1. A Compassionate Leader in Healthcare
Treating Patients with Utmost Care
VOL. 11
ISSUE 05
2021
Dr. R. Kishore
Kumar
The Most
In uential
Leader
Healthcare
in

4. e come from a time when there
were a multitude of areas where
the healthcare facilities just
could not reach. But that dilemma is
changing steadily. Thanks to telehealth,
now you can jump onto your mobile
phones and consult a doctor.
Moreover, today, there are many pocket-
sized healthcare devices available in the
market that cost 50 times less than the
machines in hospitals.
Looking at these advancements, it can be
safely asserted that the healthcare sector
has come a long way with technology-led
innovations, value-based care, the
adoption of virtual care, and whatnot.
This progression doesn’t seem to stop any
time soon. In the near future, I won’t be
surprised to see smartwatches detecting if
the wearer has an increased risk of
developing diabetes.
The future can’t be predicted, but leaders
who stand at the vanguard of healthcare
have made us believe in the possibilities
that are yet to be witnessed in the
healthcare arena.
Undeniably, the healthcare sector has
been developing at a rapid pace. All
thanks to influential leaders who have
made huge strides to bring the much-
needed revolution in the industry. These
leaders have been instrumental in shaping
the future of healthcare. They have
opened doors to numerous opportunities
and paved the way for the development
of new treatments, making delivery of
care more accessible and affordable.
While tapping the potential of some
ground-breaking technologies to build
exceptional healthcare solutions, these
leaders have also made sure to deliver
care with compassion and empathy.
In this edition of
paths with Dr R. Kishore Kumar, the
Chairman of Cloudnine Hospitals, whose
journey to revolutionise maternity and
new-born care in India, on par with
international standards, is noteworthy.
Join in to learn more about his journey!
A Difference-maker
Shaping the Future of Care
From the EDITOR
Sumita Sarkar
Editor-in-Chief
sumita@insightssuccess.com

5. Dr R. Kishore
Kumar
is recognized as
Sumita Sarkar
Editor-in-Chief
for delivering value-based,
affordable, and accessible
healthcare.
The Most
Influential Leader in
Health are

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10. Dr.
R.KishoreKumar
A Compassionate Leader in Healthcare Treating
Patients with Utmost Care
We are the largest chain of
maternal and neonatal hospitals
with level 3 NICUs catering to saving
the extreme premature babies of
less than 28 weeks
The Most
Influential Leader in
Health are

12. odern times have seen
Mmajor developments in
different industries ranging
from education, transport,
manufacturing, healthcare and so on.
The healthcare industry has also made
numerous progressions in terms of
technology and innovative treatment
methods. Many leaders in the
healthcare industry have paved the
path to excellence, while making a
massive impact on the medical sector.
These leaders are passionate about the
field of medical science and treat every
patient with compassion and
dedication. They are optimistic and are
always open towards adopting new
ideas and treatment methods. These are
the forerunners, who embrace change
and uphold healthcare, while ridding
every patient of their ailments.
One such transformational leader in
healthcare is none other than Dr. R.
Kishore Kumar, the Chairman of
Cloudnine Hospitals. He founded
We provide new
moms and dads
the excitement
and celebration
of having a baby

13. Cloudnine in 2007 to revolutionise
maternity and newborn care in India,
on par with international standards.
He saw a lot of deaths during his
training in India, but hardly saw any
deaths during his 16-year tenure in the
western world. There, he also saw what
the ‘intact’ survival of a premature
baby means to the parents. Hence, he
had this dream of providing similar
care in India and is committed to his
passion for scaling new heights in
maternity care and neonatology. He
pioneered this concept in India with
We provide 24/7 lactation
support to the mothers to give
the best start in life for
the babies

14. Our aim has been
‘Clinical Excellence, Comprehensive
Care and Celebration’ from day 1

15. We are one of the
very few hospitals
with constant
physiotherapy
support

17. We were
the first chain of
hospitals to start
allowing dads into
the labour room
or the operation
theatre
Cloudnine dedicated to providing
exclusive and comprehensive services
in maternal and childcare.
Focused on Delivering the Best
Healthcare Services
Dr. R. Kishore Kumar always wanted
to become a doctor to make a
difference in the world. While he was
pursuing his medical degree, he
realized that the field he could make a
huge difference in - was paediatrics.
However, after qualifying as a
paediatrician in 1989, he realized that
there is still a lot of learning to do. He
intended to specialize in neonatology
(babies under 28 days of life including
premature babies).
Dr. Kishore’s intention was to get the
answer of “Why were we losing 130
children per thousand live births” –
being babies under 1 year of age when
the developed world was losing only
less than 10 per thousand live births?
He wanted to study their way. Hence,
he decided to head west with his
qualifications to specialize in
neonatology.
Eventually, after working for a while in
the USA he returned to Australia and
established a “hub and spoke neonatal
intensive care unit” in Tasmania. “I
took up that challenge, completed the
task and then moved to Perth, Australia
where I was instrumental in
establishing the FIRST private
neonatal unit in Australia with the late
Prof. Alfred Grauaug, the first
professor of Neonatology in Australia,”
he expressed. Dr. Kishore then decided
to fulfil his dreams. Accordingly, he
returned to India in 2005/06 after
having been felicitated by the former
president of USA, Bill Clinton for his
achievements in neonatology.
The Inception of a Leader
After spending more than 16 years
abroad, with experience in various
leadership positions and different
healthcare systems across the world,
Dr Kishore felt the need to return to
India, where focused maternal and
neonatal care were not a priority.
Seeing the untapped potential and the
need for change, he returned in 2006.
Building upon his experiences, he
turned them into an opportunity and
founded Cloudnine - a hospital that
reimagined maternal care, birthing and
neonatal care. It soon became India’s
largest chain of specialised maternity
and neonatal care hospitals.
With Dr Kishore at the helm,
Cloudnine continues to be a pioneer
and he serves as an inspirational role
model to patients, doctors, and health
professionals all over the country,
pushing Cloudnine to new heights of
innovation. This resulted in Cloudnine
being the recipient of many awards for
both medical and entrepreneurial
successes.
True to Dr. Kishore’s belief and his
concentrated efforts, Cloudnine
became very popular and is now a
household name.
Dr. Kishore is a perfectionist; hence, he
has always wondered, whether he
could have done better, or if he could
do anything in the public sector. He
also asked himself the question,
“which way we should do things in
public sector – is it better to do by
NGO way or PPP way or in your own
way?”. Finally, this led Dr. Kishore to
pursue his executive MBA in Harvard
Business School on Healthcare
Delivery, after 34 years since
becoming a doctor.
About Cloudnine Hospital
Cloudnine Hospital upholds the belief
that a child is life’s greatest gift and
pregnancy is one of the most magical
experiences nature can offer. This gift
deserves to be nurtured and cared for,
not just at birth, but for the entire
duration of one’s pregnancy. Hence, to
ensure a healthy and happy pregnancy,
Cloudnine provides world-class
medical expertise, state-of-the-art
facilities, a space filled with love and
laughter and staff dedicated to the
holistic well-being of the mother and
the baby.
Having celebrated over 1 lakh births
across regions, with a 3000+ strong

19. team, Cloudnine has expanded its
reach to multiple facilities across India
with nearly 20 centres all across India
and growing while continuing to
maintain and excel international
standards of care. It is still going strong
with plans to reach every woman and
child in India.
The Success Saga
Under Dr. Kishore’s astute leadership,
Cloudnine Hospital has achieved many
prominent landmarks throughout its
illustrious journey. It was recently
awarded the Great Places to Work
(GPW) certificate – it is one of the very
few hospitals in India for having
achieved this feat. Cloudnine received
this recognition owing to the fact that it
provides the best working atmosphere
for nurses – be it working conditions,
working hours, accommodation
facilities, and their mental wellbeing.
Success for the doctors - Ensuring
Overall Development of the Doctors
Dr. Kishore opines that any doctor who
joined Cloudnine has improved in four
areas - financial, academic, social, and
QoL. This is because they work in one
place rather than providing their
services across different locations.
Also, any doctor who has worked in a
multi-speciality hospital knows too
well, the priority they get when faced
with an emergency slot for an
operation theatre and so on.
This has improved their quality of life
with minimal stress. Their number of
patients increased as they are
accessible all the time in 1 place, their
social life improved with more time for
interaction among peers of the same
speciality, and their financial state also
improved.
Finally, their academicism also
improved as the hospital provided
them with regular academic meetings,
CMEs (Continuing Medical
Education), and access to journals
through membership to the staff. “We
are one of the few hospitals which
assisted the doctors to obtain ASOPs
within the purview of the law and
made them feel part of the growing
company,” expresses Dr. Kishore
Success for the customers – Saving
premature babies, low maternal
mortality and morbidity
We conceived “the concept of
Cloudnine'' - It's an English idiom
meaning a state of perfect happiness, a
feeling of well-being or elation – as we
believed in the concept of pregnancy
being a WELLNESS and not an
ILLNESS. But what we realised is that
parents were going through a lot of
stress – because of the uncertainty of
the finances involved for the labour
and delivery.
Hence, among other things we did, we
also felt the joyous moment should not
be spoilt with the unnecessary financial
issues. We created delivery packages –
for both normal delivery and caesarean
sections – considering all possible
charges – doctors (obstetrician,
paediatrician, and if required,
anaesthetist in case of epidural pain
relief for normal deliveries and for
caesarean sections), consumables used,
drugs commonly used and the hospital
charges.
This was a comprehensive charge with
no need of the husband or the family
dashing down to the pharmacy or other
places every time something was
required, to get the medicines or other

20. consumables to be ‘bought’ and given
to the doctor or the nurse concerned, as
used to happen in all the hospitals.
This changed the way the prospective
parents enjoyed their birthing process –
as even before they got admitted, they
knew what they were in for.
They were left in peace to enjoy their
newborn with no worries of dashing
down here and there. They didn’t have
to have the unknowns - how they can
arrange the finances, whether they can
afford this hospital or the doctor or not
– were able to make a judicious
decision. This led to many other
hospitals following suit – the result is
that it is not stressful anymore for most
families as they could choose the
hospital according to their needs and
finances.
Success for the staff
“A happy place to work, safe place to
work, Great place to work from day 1
we have treated the nurses and allied
staff in Cloudnine on par with doctors
– unlike most hospitals in India. This
boosted their confidence and, we have
regular training programmes for them
which makes them more focussed in
their job. Why would you work in any
other hospital when Cloudnine is such
a happy place? Success for the industry
– maternity and newborn care started
being recognised as an important part
of healthcare & set the standards that
can be achieved in India,” commented
the team of Cloudnine.
Emphasis on Research
As per Dr. Kishore, research has been
the top-most priority at Cloudnine – be
it clinical or otherwise. The hospital
has also established an ICMR
recognised and industry approved IEC
(Independent Ethical Committee)
which oversees the research
undertaken and have managed to
publish just over 50 articles in national
and international medical journals,
which focuses on improving medical
care. All staff – both medical and non-
medical are encouraged to take part in
research – which could be as simple as
quality indicators to see how we can
improve on the existing situation to
make things better. In a sense, we are
our own competitors as we keep
improving day by day.
Achievements Galore
Dr. Kishore has led Cloudnine towards
winning numerous laurels. Under his
ardent leadership, the hospital has
carried out transformational initiatives
in the field of maternal healthcare.
Following are the major achievements
which Cloudnine proudly boasts of:
• It is the largest chain of maternal
and neonatal hospitals with level 3
NICUs in all hospitals employing
close to 150 neonatologists and
over 200 Obstetricians.
• It has achieved near zero percent
maternal mortality (when the
country’s maternal mortality is 113
per 1,00,000 live births) – and
99.34% neonatal survival.
Moreover, Cloudnine is one of the
few hospitals in India catering for
babies less than 28 weeks – called
extreme premature babies – when
the country’s survival is much less
than that even without taking into
account babies less than 28 weeks.
• Cloudnine is one of the very few
hospitals with constant
physiotherapy support – helping to
reduce the post birth pelvic floor
damages – accounting for nearly

21. Cloudnine's mission and vision is to ensure
they are better than the previous year
and challenge themselves to get better with
each passing year with quality control measures

22. • 15 to 20% complications in any
other place as opposed to less than
2% in its hospitals and also non-
surgical treatment of breast
abscess.
• Cloudnine provides 24/7 lactation
support to the mothers –
accounting for 96% success rate in
breastfeeding – compared to the
national average of 46 to 52%.
We stand by the slogan-
Pregnancy is a WELLNESS
and not an ILLNESS

23. • It has one of the lowest infection
rates of less than 1% when the
acceptable infection rates are
about 2%. This means there are
less expenses and morbidity for
families involved.
• It is one of the most academic
institutions in the world – with
fellowship training in
neonatology, advanced fertility
training, and advanced high risk
pregnancy training to the eligible
doctors.
• The hospital has an active research
department – with an Independent
Ethics Committee (IEC)
overseeing its functioning and
involving multicentric
multinational research to improve
the quality of the care it is
providing.
• It is one of the Great Places to
Work (GPW) with employee
satisfaction of over 97%.
• Cloudnine is a part of Vermont
Oxford Network (VON) – one of
the very few Asian groups of
hospitals and the only one in India
– to compare its standards to the
western standards and matching in
most areas and probably better in
some areas.
• Also, we introduced Newborn
Screening from day 1 in
Cloudnine despite resistance from
medical personnel – we took lot of
trouble explaining to every parent
that this was a standard test
everywhere in the world for the
last 5 decades – in India the
awareness is not there. When you
examine a baby – physically we
can examine but biochemically
and enzymatically one cannot –
hence newborn screening is
essential to identify babies with
biochemical or enzymatic
problems arising either out of
mutations or because of genetics
or environmental issues – and any
baby identified soon after birth –
can be treated to ensure they
remain normal. Now after 15
years it is getting to be a standard
test in most hospitals at least in
the southern part of India – if not
everywhere.
Owing to the dedicated endeavours of
Dr. Kishore, case studies on Cloudnine
Hospital was conducted by Indian
Institute of Management, Bangalore
(IIM-B) and Cleveland University,
Cleveland, Ohio, USA. The study
discussed about the hospital’s success
in such a short span of time and the
ways and means the management
achieved, which itself is a feather in
the cap of the hospital.
But more than that, within 4 years of
Cloudnine’s success and causing
ripples in the medical fraternity, many
other institutions started emulating
their operations. For Dr. Kishore, this
itself is a pat on the back. “But we
have remained the ‘innovators’ and
moving ahead with improved services
every day,” he shares.
Taking Steady Steps Ahead
“We went from family run set up to a
professionally run company with
marquee PE investors, like Matrix,
Sequoia, and True north. In the
process, we have created 5
entrepreneurs, returned good returns to
the angel investors and private equity
players, created more than 10
healthcare leaders, 15 nursing leaders,
a dozen medical leaders (would/could
be medical directors), numerous
We provide
the best working
atmosphere for
nurses

24. lactation consultants, numerous NICU
nursing leaders, and so on.”
Through the unwavering dedication of
Dr. Kishore, Cloudnine has achieved
almost negligible maternal mortality,
improved survival for babies despite
resuscitating extreme premature babies
with very minimal morbidity and
infections – these were thought to be
unachievable, impossible to dream of
in India. Now that the hospital has
shown that this is possible, it is
expanding across all geographies to
offer such services in metropolitan
areas – the hospital also plans to
extend these services to rural areas and
government sectors. “We have a lot of
knowledge, experience, expertise in
maternal and neonatal care which we
can offer to the governmental sectors,”
opines Dr. Kishore. He further added
that if the opportunity arises Cloudnine
is also open for public private
partnerships (PPP) to improve the
maternal and neonatal services in India
Speaking about the future, Dr. Kishore
states that after reaching the pinnacle,
Cloudnine has redefined its vision of
the future. The hospital plans to extend
its expertise in maternal and neonatal
care to the rest of the country. It aims
to make India a developed country
with respect to the healthcare
standards, especially the public sector
and the parts of the country where the
MMR (Maternal Mortality Rate),
Infant Mortality Rate (IMR), and
Neonatal Mortality Rate (NMR) is
unacceptably high using technology
and AI (Artificial Intelligence).
Dr. Kishore is of the opinion that
Cloudnine has already commenced AI
in maternal and neonatal care to this
effect by piloting to identify the high-
risk mothers and high-risk babies. This
ensures that the babies are transferred
to the tertiary centres well in time
rather than in the last minute.
Dr. Kishore says they have empowered
and employed tele-NICU across all the
Cloudnine Centres. This has made
them have ‘command centres’ in their
15 Cloudnines, so that these centres
can provide NICU care for any part of
India through technology and expertise
available in all the 20 centres, 24/7 and
also making them the largest chain of
Tele-NICU centres.
Under Dr. Kishore’s fervent leadership,
Cloudnine has developed robust
research team and research capacity –
by creating Institutional Ethics
Committee under the aegis of ICMR
(Indian Council of Medical Research)
and as per GOI (Government of India)
regulations. The hospital has also
started quality research projects in
maternal and neonatal care to improve
the services in India. It has
collaborated with multiple
countries/universities such as Notre
Dame University, Perth, Australia;
University of Sydney, Australia;
Cincinnati University, Cincinnati,
USA; Harvard Medical School,
Boston, USA; Newcastle-upon-Tyne,
UK; and so on.
Dr. Kishore’s team has created working
from home (WFH) modules for both
doctors and nurses – which means
irrespective of the location – they can
provide quality care to people across
India. “With tele-triage, tele-
consultation and tele-NICU, integrated
with AI – this is going to revolutionise
the maternal and neonatal care in
India,” he states.
Dr. Kishore states that being one of the
first hospitals in India to do mandatory
new-born screening for various
disorders, Cloudnine has saved more
than 1200 babies and has reduced the
potential morbidity in about 2800
babies. Under his stewardship, the
hospital plan to ensure that this
happens soon across all over India.
One of the main issues that the hospital
wants to focus on is to educate and
inform people about the various myths
leading to lot of issues that affect the
health of people. Dr. Kishore, along
with his team, aims to actively provide
health education to bust the myths and
in the process remove the quackery
that exists in many parts of the country.
He also is of the opinion that
healthcare delivery is a complex issue
that too for India as the country is
huge, with a young population and
only 3.7% of the population paying
taxes but the budget allotted is not
enough to cater for the whole country.
The healthcare delivery in the private
sector vs public needs to be balanced.
It is fair to say that no country has
mastered the topic yet. Some countries
have come closer to mastering the
issue, but we still have a long way to
go.