876-312-1119 OR 876-275-1119
EMED Jamaica Global Ltd.(EMED), Jamaica’s premier ground & air ambulance company today announced that it has entered into a multi year agreement with Health City Cayman Islands.
Last week, EMED signed an agreement to bridge the link between American health care, Jamaican health care and Health City Cayman Islands to deliver high-quality, affordable health care by utililizing ground ambulance, air ambulance, medical concierge services and technology solutions.
Last year, more than 2,000 attendees from around the world gathered under a large tent to celebrate the opening of a new 104-bed hospital.
Why all the fuss? Because this new facility is the work of Narayana Health chairman and India’s most renowned heart surgeon, Dr. Devi Shetty.
As EMED makes this announcement other announcements were also recently featured in the Wall Street Journal and the widely cited Harvard Business School case study. Narayana is internationally regarded as a low-cost, high-quality health care provider. Its newest hospital, Health City Cayman Islands, is the organization’s first development outside of India.
It has American health care providers watching closely and anxiously.
EMED JAMAICA Positions To Deliver Quality Care To JAMAICA
At the end of 2013, Narayana Health was operating 18 hospitals across 14 cities in India. With a laser focus on efficiency and quality, the average Narayana cardiac hospital performs 40 heart surgeries a day for less than $1,600 a case.
That’s about 2 percent of the average heart surgery cost in the U.S. with outcomes that rival the best American facilities.
With the first phase of the Cayman Island hospital now completed, Dr. Shetty plans to expand Health City Cayman Islands to 2,000 beds over the next decade. And both his vision and strategy extend well beyond this Caribbean destination.
In the United States, there is about 1 hospital bed per 333 people. The Grand Cayman Island has about 50,000 residents. When Dr. Shetty completes his expansion plans, his newest hospital will feature 1 bed per 25 Grand Cayman residents. It doesn’t take a heart surgeon to see Dr. Shetty is thinking way beyond the Caymans.
Given the hospital’s close proximity to Miami and Jamaica, Duane Boise EMED’s CEO is planning to attract patients through out the Caribbean region and from the United States. That would certainly explain why Health City is building a 5-star hotel next door with a foot bridge connecting the two world-class structures.
Today, Health City Cayman Islands focuses on cardiac and total joint surgery, cancer care and transplant services. Plans are already underway to construct an international medical school and a variety of high-quality residency training programs. He expects this facility to become a global academic medical center and a destination for the best medical school graduates.
Some Jamaican health facilities may scoff at the idea that people will travel to Health City. But Dr. Shetty can match the performance of his hospitals in India, his vision is becoming a reality sooner than they imagine. Already, the Cayman Island’s business-friendly government has allowed Dr. Shetty to move ahead with development much more rapidly than he ever could in Jamaica and the U.S.
Dr. Shetty’s Strategy: Charge Less, Treat More
In this new Cayman Islands facility, Dr. Shetty will charge less than half the average U.S. price for surgical procedures with quality outcomes that match or exceed the very best U.S. hospitals.
His approach to cost cutting is not based on paying lower wages. The Cayman Islands enjoy a similar standard of living and wage structure as the U.S. And he won’t be purchasing inferior supplies or medical implants. Nor will he use shabby construction or outdated technologies.
In fact, his approach is just the opposite.
Dr. Shetty buys only the best heart valves and orthopedic implants. He invests heavily in state-of-the-art medical and information technologies. And his construction team tested the new hospital’s windows for hurricane conditions by battering them with two-by-fours, launched at over 100 miles per hour.
How then could he possibly reach this level of cost and quality? His approach builds on his personal passion for quality, a fervor for operational excellence and a commitment to technology.
The Power Of Purpose And Vision
Boise reiterating that human life should not be determined by a price.(www.airambulancejamaica.com)
"One hundred years after the first heart procedure was performed, only 10 percent of the world can afford to have one,” he said. "We can and must do better. The future cannot be just an extension of the past. It must embrace new technology, implement innovative approaches and aim higher than people thought possible before.”
The same is true for hospitals. A facility that offers very few advanced procedures today can quickly leapfrog world-leading hospitals because – instead of slowly replacing old technologies – they can immediately implement sophisticated, modern technologies and cherry-pick the most innovative operational designs.
"Health care affordability will not come from the United States or any of the current world leaders, but rather from those nations of the world that have little today and have no choice but to perform at the highest levels possible in the future,” he said.
How Dr. Shetty Achieves High Quality At Lower Costs
So, what’s his secret? Dr. Shetty and Narayana Health incorporate a four-part blend of sophisticated technology and economies of scale to deliver exceptional quality while managing costs:
1. Utilizing real-time data
Patient care at Health City Cayman Islands is supported by state-of-the-art technology that uses a robust electronic medical record (EMR) system to augment clinical care.
Doctors and nurses access the encrypted information through Bluetooth-enabled devices as they make their rounds. These devices allow patients to communicate with doctors and nurses from anywhere in the hospital while also staying connected with their loved ones far away.
A central care area with four large wall-mounted computer screens allows physicians to continually monitor patients. Three of the screens offer video monitoring of individual patients along with their comprehensive medical data. The fourth screen shows real-time performance metrics across the medical center, paying particular attention to medical care delays.
2. Eliminating medical care delays
According to Duane Boise, time is the enemy of quality and cost savings.
"When patients have potentially life-threatening problems EMED ground and air ambulance has the ability to provide emergency ambulance services to Jamaicans in need because their health deteriorates with every passing minute,” he said.
Doctors can minimize this deterioration by responding rapidly when unexpected clinical findings surface. This allows the patient to recover much faster and reduces the total cost of care.
You might think every hospital would do this, but that isn’t the case.
To heighten the hospital’s focus on rapid response, Health City Cayman Islands has entered into the agreement with EMED to bridge the link allowing quick access for significant medical problems. EMED’s new telemedicine system improves the speed of response. Once the telemedicine contact begins, the system documents the time it takes for physicians and nurses to respond appropriately.
The hospital-wide average time for an appropriate response in Health City Cayman Islands is seven minutes. In the typical Jamaican and U.S. hospital, this time delay is not measured. A best guess would yield 30 minutes during the day and as long as an hour at night.
As Duane Boise states, "These delays mean prolonged hospital stays, increased medical complications and even death.”
The result is productivity double that of the typical U.S. hospital.
What Does This Mean For Health Care?
"The future is in front of them, but they can’t see it,”stated Dr. Shetty.
Based on everything Boise saw in the Cayman Islands Health City is about 10 years ahead of those used in the typical U.S. hospital.
It may take a decade for Health City Cayman Islands to complete the 2,000 bed construction and attract the volume of patients necessary to fill each bed. But if I were the CEO of a hospital in Florida, I would be rushing to match his outstanding clinical outcomes and low prices today. Once Health City Cayman Islands is fully operational and filled to capacity, it will be too late.
About EMED GLOBAL JAMAICA, Ltd.
EMED, provides secure and easy-to-use online EMED ALERT Personal Health Records ("PHRs") and electronic safe storage solutions, serving consumers, healthcare professionals, employers, insurance companies, financial institutions, and professional organizations. The EMED ALERT PHR enables individuals and families to access their medical records and other important documents, such as birth certificates, passports, insurance policies and wills, anytime from anywhere using the Internet. The EMED ALERT PHR is built on proprietary, patented technologies to allow documents, images and messages to be transmitted and stored in the electronic medical record platform to populate a user's account.
The Company's professional offering, EMED ALERT®, is designed to give physicians' offices an easy and cost-effective solution to digitizing paper based medical records and sharing them with patients in real time through an integrated patient portal. To learn more about EMED, and its products, visit www.EMEDHEALTHTECHNOLOGY.COM
JAMAICA AIR AMBULANCE, headquartered in Kingston,Jamaica, supports operations throughout the Caribbean as well as in Kingston, Montego Bay,Negril, Ocho Rios, Portland, and Manchester Jamaica. EMED provides emergency ground, air medical transport services fixed-wing aircraft, medical assistance and has performed most all air ambulance missions in Jamaica since its inception in 2009. EMED has been recognized by the Medical Association of Jamaica, and the Jamaica Chamber of Commerce. For more information, visit www.airambulancejamaica.com
For Emergency Air or Ground Ambulance call EMED 275-1119