It was 1978 when the country saw the birth of what was to become one of India's best-known medical institutions. It was the year when an eye hospital took upon itself to deliver free treatment to its patients.

Sankara Nethralaya is all that and more. The charitable hospital that was conceived by Sankaracharya of Kanchi, has many awards and accolades against its name -- including the best managed charitable hospital in the country.

Today, in its 30th year, equipped with the latest technology, this super specialty hospital treats more than half a million patients annually. But long before it started to see this many patients, the hospital realized that it was imperative to have an IT-enabled infrastructure. And, today, it uses technology extensively for all its operations.

But, beneath this success story and the awards lay a sorry picture of a tired network infrastructure.

In November 2007, the hospital installed a comprehensive EMR system (an electronic medical records system maintains patient records in a digital format). "The EMR is life critical," says M.K. Manavalan, Head-IT, Sankara Nethralaya. "If a doctor in an operation theatre needs to verify something, he or she turns to the tablet PC or laptop" that runs on the EMR system.