A hospital for the world

St. Luke’s Medical Center recently placed second and couldn’t be prouder. It was the second hospital in Asia to be accredited by Joint Commission International for "excellence in providing health care." The first Asian hospital to be JCL-accredited was Bumrungrad Medical Center in Thailand and the third was Clifford Hospital in China.. "It took us one year to prepare for the accreditation," said, vice-president for medical affairs Joven Cuanang. "The first step was to convince everyone that this is where the hospital should go. We knew that we would be needing the help of all the 2,000 people working here, from the doctors and administrative staff to the nurses and orderlies to housekeeping."

St. Luke’s obtained a copy of the JCL guidelines which cover everything from patient and family rights to governance, from staff qualifications and education to management of information. "There are more than 900 standards and more than 1,000 measurable items specified," said Cuanang.

A three-man team headed by Cuanang focused on organizing the operations and the systems of the hospital to meet the standards. A check list was quickly made of the guidelines which the hospital already met and those which needed tweaking. Special attention was given to those guidelines which are often taken for granted.

"When they came here, they wanted to see the qualifications of the staff and they randomly asked for the profile of some of our medical staff. That was easy because we have done our homework. Our staff are well-trained under our 16 residency programs and 26 fellowship programs. Furthermore, we have one nurse for every five patients. In the intensive care unit, one nurse takes care of less patients, a difficult feat to achieve when Filipino nurses are leaving the country," said Cuanang.

Centers

Last year, St. Luke’s earned P200 million, 10% of which provided health care for charity patients. The bulk of its earnings went to purchase equipment such as the IMRT or intensity modulated radiation therapy.

"Even the JCL people were surprised that we have an IMRT. We are the only hospital in the country with an IMRT, " said Cuanang.

One of St. Luke’s strengths is its decision to operate specialized centers, where all the treatment and tests of a particular disease or illness are centralized. Each center, which now number seven, has its own specialized equipment and staff, leading to efficiencies as well as to effectiveness in dealing with patients. For example, all the medical records of a particular patient are kept in just one center instead of the usual practice of keeping records in the different departments of the hospital.

"We are already better than 95% of hospitals in the United States and are slowly getting nearer our goal of becoming a medical institution at par with John Hopkins, in terms of our facilities as well as the kind of service we offer our patients," said Cuanang.