Rajendra Kshirsagar has been appointed Chief Information Officer (CIO) of Star Hospitals, the Hyderabad-based multispecialty and quaternary care hospital group. Kshirsagar, a hospital IT leader with more than three decades in technology, took up the role in August 2026 and announced the move on LinkedIn; the appointment was reported on 2 November 2026.

The appointment puts a specialist in hospital information systems at the centre of Star Hospitals’ technology plans, at a time when hospitals across India are moving clinical and administrative work onto digital platforms. eHealth readers may remember Kshirsagar from his 2014 eHealth interview on cloud computing in hospitals, given when he headed IT at Hinduja Healthcare.

Who is Rajendra Kshirsagar, Star Hospitals’ new CIO?

Kshirsagar began his career in 1990 as a computer programmer, building inventory, payroll and management information system (MIS) applications, and later spent more than a decade running IT for large hospitality operations in Mumbai, including 11 years as EDP Manager at Holiday Inn Bombay, Juhu. That background in round-the-clock operations carried into healthcare, where he has worked since December 2007.

His hospital roles include:

• Head of IT, Breach Candy Hospital Trust, Mumbai, where he oversaw a move to a new version of the hospital information system (HIS) and the migration of data from the earlier in-house system
• Head of IT, Hinduja Healthcare Surgical, Mumbai, a greenfield hospital that ran a document management system and a Siemens PACS from its first day
• CIO, Meitra Hospital, Kozhikode, a paperless greenfield project with a full electronic medical record (EMR) from day one
• IT leadership at Holy Family Hospital, Mumbai (from 2018), Sri Balaji Action Medical Institute, New Delhi, and Rajagiri Hospital, Kochi

Paperless hospital and HIS integration experience

The Meitra project is the clearest example of the integration work Kshirsagar brings. According to published accounts of his career, the hospital’s HIS was connected to a Draeger ICU management system, the picture archiving and communication system (PACS), SAP materials management and HR modules, a patient queue management system and even canteen billing, so that clinical, operational and back-office data sat on one backbone.

That kind of integration is the hard part of hospital digitisation. Public systems are working through the same problem at scale, from Madhya Pradesh’s move to paperless government hospitals under HIMS to Tripura bringing all its government hospitals onto IHMIS.

What the CIO role means for Star Hospitals

Star Hospitals was founded in 2008 by Dr Gopichand Mannam and began as a cardiac-focused institute before widening into a multispecialty network. It runs hospitals in Banjara Hills and Nanakramguda in Hyderabad and recently opened an information centre and air ambulance service in Ballygunge, Kolkata, its first presence in West Bengal.

A growing, multi-site group needs a technology backbone that keeps patient records, diagnostics and referrals connected across locations. Kshirsagar’s remit covers IT strategy, infrastructure and project delivery as the group enters its next phase of digital growth. Mid-sized hospital groups are also weighing newer options, such as AI-first HIS and EHR platforms built for mid-market hospitals, which makes experienced CIOs central to buying and integration decisions.

Why hospital CIO appointments matter

As national programmes such as the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission push hospitals towards interoperable, ABHA-linked records, the CIO’s job has shifted from keeping systems running to deciding how clinical data flows between departments, sites and government platforms. Leaders who have run HIS migrations and paperless launches are in short supply, which is why such moves are closely watched across the sector.

More on the hospital group is available on the Star Hospitals website.

Featured image: Rajendra Kshirsagar, Chief Information Officer, Star Hospitals, with the Star Hospitals building in Hyderabad. Photos: Star Hospitals / Rajendra Kshirsagar.

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