St Luke’s success story continues

St. Luke’s Medical Center’s (SLMC) success story is a continuing saga of small achievements that incorporate a paradigm shift in the management of a medical facility. For the innovative way at management of SLMC, president and CEO Jose F.G. Ledesma has brought forth the best that a hospital can be.

A visit to St. Luke’s at any time of the day will reveal a corporate culture that is unique in itself, Here, the floors and other facilities are kept clean 24 hours a day; the medical and non-medical workers are courteous and attentive to the patients to such a point that the patient feel they are guests in a hotel. There lies the big difference. For Ledesma has benchmarked the medical center’s services to the best in the business world. "We want to benchmark SLMC to the best companies in each industry," Ledesma said, beaming, the pride in his face unmistakable.

SLMC has been registering small triumphs that altogether point to one direction – a focus that is etched in a vision of the company that can be found tacked on the right side of Ledesma’s office – a timely reminder for the man who sees the company’s dream everytime he swivels around his chair to type ideas in his computer.

Considered the "best hospital" in the country now, SLMC still strives to better its service, technology and facilities – the three areas which Mr. Ledesma identified early on as the key points for the medical center’s strive for excellence. "We are continuously improving" in these three aspects, Ledesma intoned.

The SLMC president is pretty successful toward the small goals that he has lined-up. And he stays focused for the attainment of the company vision. When he undertook the acquisition of state-of-the-art technology for the hospital, he saw to it that he got only the top-of-the-line.

By November this year, St. Luke’s Medical Center will have a PET (positron emission tomography) scanner, the first hospital to have the top-of-the-line medical equipment in the ASEAN region. This P150-million acquisition, will enhance the capability of SLMC to diagnose cancer earlier and follow up on the treatment of this disease.

The introduction of new equipment complement’s SLMC’s other goal: that of getting Filipino doctors in the United States to practice their skills in the country.

According to him, SLMC has successfully wooed back doctors in the US due to the presence of state-of-the-art equipment with which they are familiar with.

Aside from bringing back Filipino doctors, SLMC also undertakes the training of its own medical staff to the US. He said about 20 doctors a year are sent to foreign shores to further enhance their skills and expose them to new-found techniques and technologies.

For Ledesma, the PET scanner and other new medical equipment, together with the five-star hotel service which the staff render and the excellent facilities are all meant to ensure that SLMC "becomes the best hospital in the region" by 2005.

And the way SLMC is going, this is not far off. Ledesma continues to benchmark the services of the medical facility to a five-star hotel. "We see to it that the best is made better," he said. Hence, even if considered the cleanest hospital by industry standards, Ledesma is still not happy. What he wants is to achieve the cleanliness standard of a five-star hotel.

Even in terms of service and facilities, his yardstick for excellence is that of a first-class hotel. And he even does it better. In the 35 suites of SLMC, a computer and unlimited Internet connection is included in the room sans the charges which a five-star hotel tacks on the guests availing themselves of these extra services.

"We make sure that everybody’s request is granted," Ledesma said, "be it a typewriter that has to be taken from the hospital’s Administrative Department or a leaking faucet." And the response time? All of 20 minutes.

The service concept that has been inculcated in the SLMC staff has been widely recognized. It is not uncommon for patients and families to write letter to the hospital for the attention they received from the staff. In one such letter from Edna and Lito Hernandez, the "great effort and attention" of SLMC was deemed "incomparable" and "hardly obtainable in other hospitals." The same was true for Mrs. Thelma Bondoc who was profuse in her thanks for the recovery of a wallet she lost while paying for hospital bills. For Mrs. Bondoc, this is one of the reasons why she continues "patronizing the hospital."

This concept of service is in keeping with SLMC’s aim to "bring to the Filipino people the services and facilities available in the best medical center," Ledesma said. Hence, the "only thing constant is change," he added, pointing to the fact that the hospital’s research facility has successfully produced a diagnostic kit that allows the early detection of dengue.

Proof of SLMC’s sucess in its research is a memorandum of agreement signed by the hospital with the Department of Health for the transfer of technology from SLMC to the DOH on dengue detection last July 24. Ultimately, SLMC seeks to come up with a dengue vaccine which it intends to share with the rest of the world.

Aside from the research facility whose findings are exchanged with the United States Center for Disease Control and other similar facilities, the medical center is engaged in its own brand of charity work that comes up to about P200 million a year, Ledesma said. "We do it quietly," he said.

The business model that is SLMC is a continuing effort for the past 20 years," said Ledesma, a former medical representative whose shift to management has produced innovations that has been acclaimed by other experts. In the book, The New Asian Corporation management man Michael Alan Hamlin wrote:" Jose Ledesma’s hospital is one of the most innovative organizations to establish itself in twenty-five years of observing Asian enterprise." Hamlin’s book detailed the best practices of Asian corporations.

Asked what are his management models, Ledesma said it is a combination of many ideas. "We pick ideas everywhere; we are not afraid to copy others," he added. He even ventured that SLMC even "improves on others’ (ideas)." What is important though is that SLMC does not lose sight of its mission of being the best medical center in the region in four years.

With the constant training at service of its 2,400 non-medical staff to look after 640 beds, the continued acquisition of state-of-the-art medical equipment, the bench-marking to five-star hotel standards plus the reverse brain drain (100 doctors from the US have joined the medical facility so far), SLMC is continuing to write its success story.