Three months into the role, Inderpal Kohli is laying the groundwork at Newark, N.J.-based University Hospital, from a major ERP migration to a deliberately cautious approach to AI.
Mr. Kohli’s appointment as CIO of Newark, N.J.-based University Hospital was announced in May. Three months into the job, he laid out the priorities shaping his first year at the state’s only public hospital.
Before launching anything new, Mr. Kohli said his immediate focus is understanding where the organization stands today.
“Immediate priority is building a strong and stable foundation for the organization,” he told Becker’s. “That starts with listening to my team, clinical staff and leadership.”
In parallel, he said he is focused on infrastructure, applications, cybersecurity and governance, with technology serving as what he described as “the catalyst” that makes it easier to deliver patient care.
The most significant project already in motion for the hospital is an enterprise resource planning migration to Oracle Cloud that began before Mr. Kohli joined, with a completion target for next July. He called it the biggest initiative he inherited.
“All eyes on it from my team, from myself, from all of our support partners,” he said.
The EMR side of the house isn’t standing still either. University Hospital has run Epic for years and is in the midst of completing several Epic modules, including its Beaker and anatomic pathology components, alongside ambient dictation tools that Mr. Kohli said he is still evaluating.
When it comes to AI, rather than developing proprietary tools, University Hospital is leaning on AI features already built into its EHR for denials, coding and clinical insights.
Underpinning all of it is a governance structure he is building to prioritize technology requests across the academic medical center, where demands come from clinical, research and administrative units competing for the same limited resources.
On staffing, Mr. Kohli said he’s still early in evaluating his team and is focused for now on identifying and addressing any gaps, rather than growing headcount. He said he expects to make longer-term staffing decisions in tandem with the broader technology roadmap he’s building for the organization, one aligned with its strategic priorities.
What he inherited is a staff with long tenure at the hospital, many with clinical backgrounds. He said that background helps them understand the operational stakes of their work at a level 1 trauma center in Newark, which he described as a large safety net hospital where the mission carries real weight and impact for the community it serves.
“The mission we all carry is very real. It has an impact. It’s not just words somewhere,” he said.
Mr. Kohli is also beginning to shape a longer-term roadmap, aligning his plans with the hospital’s broader strategic goals and, as a large academic teaching and research institution, balancing investment in research infrastructure with patient care priorities.
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