Grand Opening of Xiangya International Medical Center in Collaboration with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center

Xiangya Hospital of Central South University, in collaboration with University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC), established the Xiangya International Medical Center (XIMC) as the first international medical center in association with a large public hospital in the Hunan Province. After months of preparation, XIMC held a grand opening ceremony on July 21^st 2015, culminating an elaborate effort of formal collaboration and coordination (Figures 1,2). The concept of XIMC will provide state of the art care, based in central China, radiating to peripheral regions, while serving the country, with global involvement and impact. Supported by the resources of Xiangya Hospital and the most advanced management and service concepts, XIMC is dedicated to providing healthcare to both national and international patients who seek world-class healthcare in China. This is also an opportunity for Xiangya Hospital to accelerate the process of internationalization and to improve technology, quality care and management across the full range of healthcare services. XIMC will also make significant contributions to the overall investment environment in Hunan Province.

Figure 1 The opening of Xiangya International Medical Center (XIMC).

Figure 2 The main representatives of Xiangya Hospital and University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC).

The high-end international diagnosis and treatment center will meet the needs of all levels of medical services. According to current statistics, there are about 4,000 expatriates and foreigners currently living in Changsha, and over 30 million foreigners passing through the port of entry and exit in Changsha annually. With the rapid improvement in the social and economic environment of Hunan, the demand of international-quality healthcare services will increase continuously as more and more foreigners take residence in Hunan.

Currently, the majority of the foreigners in Hunan seek hospital services through their personal contacts. However, language barriers and different healthcare delivery models make it difficult to maintain complete and standardized medical records. In addition, the process accepted by international commercial health insurance companies also contributes to the overall complexity of treating international patients properly.

In April 2009, the Chinese State Council released a document entitled “Advancing the healthcare system reform”, which points out that one of the basic principles of advancing the healthcare system reform is to meet the multi-level, diversified demand for healthcare of the Chinese people and residents. The establishment of XIMC meets the high-quality healthcare demand for foreigners and people in the mainland who seek advanced, outcomes-based care. It also meets national strategy in healthcare reform and accelerates the innovative reform unfolding in public hospitals.

With the integration of comprehensive care for patients in the outpatient clinic, inpatient wards and rehabilitation, XIMC provides a wide range of services as a truly high-end international medical center. Its main purpose is to provide high-quality, convenient, efficient, warm and world-class care to the foreigners who work, study and live in China, as well as the domestic patients who have demand for high quality healthcare services.

Dr. Hong Sun, the president of Xiangya Hospital said that the opening of XIMC provides a “fast lane” for Xiangya’s internationalization process, and positively impacts the investment environment of Hunan. This will attract and drive more foreigners to invest, work, study and live in Hunan.

Currently, XIMC has an outpatient clinic, and inpatient medical and surgical units comprised of a total of 36 beds. The medical staff includes outstanding members from each department of Xiangya Hospital who were carefully selected through comprehensive assessment. According to Professor Guanghua Lei, who is the Vice President of Medical Affairs of Xiangya Hospital, “the bed/nurse ratio is 1:3, which is much higher than the ratio of 1:0.6 required by the Chinese national regulation? This high ratio will assure the highest quality of care. Further, the patient rooms of XIMC are equivalent to 5-star hotel standards”.

XIMC is a non-profit department that falls under the Xiangya Hospital. XIMC will propose its own service fees, with the approval by Provincial Bureau of Commodity Price. The service fees are paid either out-of-pocket from patients or by commercial health insurance companies. XIMC does not accept national public medical insurances. All profits will be used to support Xiangya’s public medical services, ensuring Xiangya’s non-profit status as a public hospital.

As for medical technology, XIMC is collaborating with the expert teams from multiple world-renowned medical centers, Xiangya overseas alumni, and its own expert team from Xiangya Hospital, to provide patients with high quality-healthcare in line with international standards and best practices.

The outpatient unit of XIMC operates on an appointment based schedule. All patients need to make appointments one week in advance to see the experts they desire, or the experts recommended by the nurses. For all patients in the inpatient unit, XIMC will have designated medical coordinators to help patients navigate admission processes, such as registration, examination, operation, transportation, nutrition, and others.

XIMC officially began to admit patients since the trial period started July 1^st, 2015. For example, Mr. Yu, an 85-year-old retired employee of the Provincial Department of Civil Affairs who suffers from diabetes, rheumatic arthritis, and cerebral cardiovascular diseases was admitted to XIMC. Over the last several years, Mr. Yu has been admitted to many different wards in the hospital. According to his experience, the wards in XIMC are state of the art. The services provided by the medical staff are excellent. His stay in XIMC made him feel much better both physically and mentally. He is very happy with the service.

XIMC provides a “fast lane” for the internationalization process of the hundred-year-old Xiangya Hospital. On August 21^st, 2014, Xiangya Hospital of Central South University and UPMC signed the agreement to collaboratively establish XIMC, a truly high-quality, world-class medical center. “Xiangya Hospital has sufficient reserves of talents and technical support. The key is to introduce the world-class management and services, new concepts of best practice and standardized protocols and guidelines, in order to improve the management and service capability of the entire hospital” said Xiangya President Dr. Hong Sun, “High-quality healthcare needs to be built upon the overall strength of the hospital. Xiangya Hospital has a large number of medical and management staff members that have studied or worked overseas. They have the advantage of adopting new visions, perspectives, medical skills, and overcoming language barriers. This is an important advantage for the XIMC”.

“We built XIMC according to advanced world-class hospital management rules, workflows and technical protocols. UPMC is a large non-profit healthcare organization, and is one of the most famous medical centers in the US. The collaboration will allow more foreign patients to receive high-quality healthcare services in Hunan”.

Xiangya Hospital introduces a series of quality and safety control protocols, including clinical quality, patient safety, radiation safety, infection control, and biohazard risk prevention through consulting services provided by UPMC’s technical and management team, many of whom reside in Changsha. In addition, the UPMC team has also designed excellent service strategies, such as customer services, patient services and complaint handling, to ensure the best patient and family satisfaction. Xiangya Hospital and UPMC have also established training program collaboration and are in the process of establishing a telemedicine consultation, hoping to extend the relationship to accelerate the technology, service and management improvement and the internationalization process of Xiangya Hospital. The guidance provided by UPMC advisors, in addition to the training received by key members of each department of Xiangya in the US will also benefit other parts of the Hospital. By rotating in different departments, the personnel who received training will share his or her knowledge with colleagues and counterparts and influence people to practice the standards they have learned in the US.

Acknowledgments

Funding: None.

Footnote

Provenance and Peer Review: This article was commissioned by the editorial office, Journal of Xiangya Medicine. The article did not undergo external peer review.

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