Sarah Cartledge speaks to Dr Ali Haydar, Chief Medical Officer, Aman Hospital in Qatar, and Alistair Russell at Imperial Private Healthcare about the International Affiliate Network
Co-operation is absolutely key to the development of best practice in healthcare at large. Development, innovation, and ingenuity can only come about when we challenge our ways of approaching problems – and the best way to do this is through the sharing of our learnings, especially so at the forefront of healthcare.
Earlier this year Imperial Private Healthcare launched their new project, the International Affiliate Network, established to develop relationships between ambitious hospitals across the world, enabling them to share knowledge and expertise, and advance patient care. The network strives to ensure that member hospitals can not only widen their services and care through collaboration, but that they can share their learning with other organisations. As such, this network is not simply a one-way improvement service, but a truly collective project.
Aman Hospital in Qatar is the first partner in the International Affiliate Network and is already benefitting from being part of the programme. A leading hospital in the region, Aman Hospital prides itself on providing cutting-edge standards of care, delivered by experienced clinicians. With practitioners who have graduated from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in London, the Mayo Clinic, and many more, the staff at Aman have obtained their certifications from the best medical institutions in the world.
This new 100+ bed hospital aims to define the future of healthcare delivery in Qatar and the region by combining unparalleled professional expertise, cutting-edge technology, state-of-theart equipment, service excellence, a relentless pursuit of medical innovation, and deluxe hospitality, all with a focus on patient-centred care. The main goal is to integrate the quality of care with the highest quality services which include 5 Centres of Excellence, 16 speciality clinics, VIP and Royal suites and hospitality-trained staff.
Building a true partnership
These days it’s common for hospitals to partner with other organisations, especially ones far away from them. Yet all too often, these partnerships are in name only. They still sit as separate organisations, and the benefit of the ‘partnership’ is merely for recognition. “As a hospital we wanted a stronger affiliation than just a standard partnership. This isn’t an affiliation just by name, but one whereby you actually serve the community better together; you improve the quality of care together, and the quality of teaching and education together,” says Dr Ali Haydar, Chief Medical Officer at Aman Hospital.
Imperial Private Healthcare is part of Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, one of the largest teaching hospital groups in the UK, and consists of 5 London hospitals – Queen Mary’s, The Lindo Wing, Charing Cross, Hammersmith, Queen Charlotte’s and Chelsea, and The Western Eye Hospital. With more than 500 medical consultants it covers all clinical areas and specialities, and has a long-standing tradition as one of the most important medical institutions in the UK.
“The network’s aim is principally around developing healthcare capability around the world. The NHS values that surround the knowledge transfer are really important to embrace improving healthcare in the regions where we have worked for years and from where we continue to receive patients,” says Alistair Russell, Business Development Manager at Imperial Private Healthcare.
Another benefit of the network is that in addition to the deep-rooted nature of the partnership, it also allows member organisations to tailor-make their partnership, based on their vision, strategy, and needs and requirements. “The benefit of this affiliation has been developed together between Imperial and Aman when we were forming the partnership, and it turned out to be a very interesting concept and idea,” says Dr Haydar.
The concept of the transfer of knowledge with Imperial was really developed to go both ways – we are two different worlds, with two different pathologies and two different sets of requirements, so it’s really reciprocal,” he continues.
Aman Hospital is a fully digital and paperless organisation – the only paper to be printed is the consent form which cannot be digitally signed in Qatar. “We have seven operating theatres that are all connected to an advanced digital system that allows us to transfer data either internally to our conference rooms or externally. So if we’re doing an operation and there’s a question, I can easily log in someone outside the theatre, even at Imperial, and ask for an opinion on the spot. The same thing would apply to endoscopy, even radiology or interventional radiology procedures.”
As Aman is a private hospital, they do not normally recruit all specialities or deal with all pathologies. They can treat 80 per cent of the pathologies but 20 per cent will need different expertise, perhaps in a specialist centre. With the affiliation in place, the consultants can reach out to Imperial and transfer a patient if the MDT team across both hospitals considers it necessary, ensuring continuous care across continents. “It’s absolutely a win-win as we specialise in different things and without the network, neither of us can offer a full pathway to certain patients,” says Alistair.
“Imperial can’t offer clinical services in Qatar, but we really want to be able to tap into that market,” he continues. “Aman Hospital wants to specialise in certain centres of excellence that we provide, but they can’t necessarily access or provide everything they need due to justifying the investment for the volume of patients. But together, using each other’s services, and sharing our expertise, we can offer the full pathway. So, from the patient perspective, they’re getting the full pathway under one roof.”
The almost universal use of digital meetings on platforms such as Teams has made second opinions and knowledge transfer much easier. For patients travelling to London for surgery, they will have already met the doctor virtually and the notes can be transferred instantly, reducing anxiety and long on-boarding procedures.
“When a patient presents in Qatar and is diagnosed, they can be treated up to a certain point and they may choose to have an opinion from an Imperial consultant on a peer-to-peer basis. If they decide to transfer to London, it becomes a managed service by our teams, says Alistair. “Before this, patients would have had to do it themselves. Now we are confident that we are all updated when the patient arrives, and that we are discharging them back to a team we know. It’s all been enabled through telemedicine and advisory work, and the benefit to Aman Hospital is the complete end-to-end pathway.”
Transfer of knowledge
For Clinical Lead Dr Bassem Safadi, this knowledge transfer is extremely beneficial. “Through the network we can connect with a big institution and actually get people from there to train our staff, or send some of our staff to London to get special expertise, and that’s something we think is very important,” he says.
Again, this is not a one-way street. “For example, Aman called us up and asked for our thoughts on Lasik equipment and if we use it,” says Alistair. “We checked with our consultants and they confirmed what the staff at Aman wanted to know, giving them the guidelines that we follow. Equally, Aman Hospital operates brand new equipment not available yet at Imperial.”
The peer-to-peer learning is highly regarded by both institutions. “We will hopefully sign up all their doctors as observers and participate in life with us and vice versa, blended with face-to-face contact,” he adds. For Dr Safadi, it’s also a personal benefit; “There is also much to be gained for the clinical team, as well as for the institution and the patients,” he says.
From Imperial’s point of view, Aman Hospital has an innovative approach to holistic care. Hassan Elbouatmani, Chief Hospitality and Operation Officer, comes from a hotel background, and his aim is to enhance the whole patient experience. “Treatment is also about what the patient hears and smells,” he says. “A calming and stress-free environment in a hospital can help the patient recover faster. We’re offering a service that relies on hospitality and we are confident it can translate into the healing process.”
Aside from the gourmet restaurant and executive chefs, Hassan is keen to serve the patients the food they would like to eat at the time they would like. “It’s not about serving them breakfast when they need to sleep, or giving them dinner when they aren’t hungry,” he says. “They are more likely to eat appetising food when they are ready and reap the benefit. From that point of view, yes, it’s more like a hotel with room service, but it feeds into the patient recovery.”
Equally, Chief Nursing Officer, Trudy Rowsell, is promoting a multi-speciality concept that interests Imperial. With global workforce shortages an issue for all providers, a new approach is vital. “I’m looking at an agile workforce, trying to move nurses around in different areas and giving them those skills so they gain a greater portfolio which delivers job retention for the hospital,” she says. “Again, this will deliver a better patient experience as the nurses will have a greater skillset to offer.”
Lastly, with the long period of tradition and history that Imperial enjoys, new institutions can benefit from the experience in areas around governance, policies and procedures, and patient safety. “We’re very interested in global healthcare and internationalising care,” says Dr Haydar. “Up to 90 pieces of our equipment are state of the art and some of them are not available in the whole Gulf region, such as the transcranial magnetic stimulation, which is an FDA approved treatment for depression and chronic pain, and robotic interventional radiology, so we are able to offer a reverse pathway for those who would like to come to Qatar for treatment with our technology.”
All in all, the International Affiliate Network provides an unprecedented opportunity for hospitals, clinicians, and patients to access higher standards of care around the world, and for organisations to build and grow together.
If you would be interested in joining Imperial’s International Affiliate network, please contact Alistair Russell, Imperial Private Healthcare