The New Health Age of Hospitals has Begun!

In that last column I wrote about HCCI and the visionary behind it Dr Devi Shetty In this column I want to take a look at some of the simple yet profound innovations that put HCCI at the leading edge of hospitals in the worldHCCI was built for one third the cost of a hospital in the US on a cost per bed basis Of course much of this cost differential is due to significantly greater regulations and governmental oversight in the US However what one sees at HCCI is a commitment to functional simplicity with the entire focus on efficient patient care through put and high qualitylow cost outcomes The lobby to the entire hospital is simple and pleasant When walking through it all I could think about were two major hospitals in the Chicago area One has a drive through dropoff entrance with complex neon sculptures and valet parking The other has a threestory atrium entrance with a two story cascading waterfall with a baby grand piano that someone plays Is this a hospital or a Four Seasons hotel We wonder why our hospital bills so highHCCI was built with state of the art modular construction ideas with a total focus on being energy efficient sustainable and maintaining a zero carbon footprint There are big windows looking out on beautiful tropical landscapes Even the operating rooms have large picture windows When I asked Dr Shetty why an operating room had a picture window his answer was simple and direct He spoke about how natural light in a workplace helps keep creativity at high levels Given that his surgeons do 5 or more operations a day they need to stay fresh and creative through the dayThe intensive care unit is one big room with a number of beds so that fewer staff can keep an eye on and monitor a greater number of patients There is a high window over each bed so that in recovery the patient has natural light and can see the Caribbean sky At the end of each bed is a holder for a tablet When being admitted to the hospital the patient is given an inexpensive tablet that is then loaded with all necessary patient records That tablet stays with the patient through recovery and until they leave the hospital complex At each patient touch point the doctor or staff person makes an entry Everything about that patient is both on that tablet and in a central control room where all data from the tablets is being monitored One of the goals is to attempt to eliminate any lag time between a patient event and the response from the staff This system is called the iKare system and its creation and implementation is being led by Silicon Valley veteran Samir MitraDr Shetty has been called the amp8220Henry Ford of health careamp8221 because he is basically lowering costs by increasing volume of output He is bringing scale to what is still a largely amp8220craft businessamp8221 in the US Volume of patient through put not just increases efficiency but it drives the ability to negotiate better pricing on just about anything that goes into a hospital This means that Dr Shetty will not only deliver the same if not significantly better medical outcomes for patients than most US hospitals his team will do so at less than half the cost of identical procedures in the US So one can have a better health outcome at a fraction of the cost and only an hour away from FloridaHCCI has a room entirely filled with one large machine This machine converts ambient oxygen from the air into high quality hospital oxygen which is usually very expensive This dramatically lowers the cost of oxygen for the hospital Interestingly the company that makes this sizable machine is based in the US but has yet to take an order from any US health care providersIn my last column I mentioned that the health care panel at the grand opening of HCCI at which I was honored to provide closing remarks was chaired by Dr Robert Pearl the CEO of Permanente Medical group Dr Pearl is also a weekly columnist for Forbes and he has written two expansive columns about HCCI and Dr Shetty that provide deeper insights into this New Health AgeThe technologies the total sustainable vision of construction and operation the functional intelligence of operation the deep compassion and the commitment to high quality care at the lowest possible cost make HCCI the vision of the future of hospital health care in the US and around the worldDavid Houle is a futurist strategist and speaker He has always been slightly ahead of the curve Houle spent more than 20 years in media and entertainment Most recently David is a featured contributor to Oprahcom Check him out here wwwoprahcomdavidhoule David can be contacted at DavidDavidHoulecomRead all Davidamp8217s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Evolution ShiftCheck us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates at MediaBizBloggerThe opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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The New Health Age of Hospitals has Begun!

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