Samitivej determined to continue three key strategies

Samitivej Hospital will continue to focus on advanced medical technology development, academic improvement and lifting its service standard as its key strategies to compete in the healthcare business next year.

Somsiri Sakolsatayadorn, director of Samitivej Sukhumvit, one of the company's branches, recently said Samitivej Hospital had concentrated on the development of these three aspects for a long time. Even during the economic downturn, the hospital will continue with this policy, and will not pay attention to high net profits at the expense of these developments.

"We never see making a high net profit as our business goal. Our goal is to make available the best medical technology and medical services," she said.

As Samitivej is a private hospital that targets foreign patients, it is still spending on improving its nurses' English skills.

Besides this, however, it has no plans for major investment next year.

The hospital has applied the E-Kardex system - information technology that has been developed for safety-critical systems - for use in its medical process since 2007 in order to reduce human errors, Somsiri said.

For example, Samitivej's doctors have already used the in-house IT system to issue prescriptions, replacing paper prescriptions that leave more room for error. Nurses will also mark each patient's treatment progress through the IT program before handing over to the next shift.

Samitivej plans to develop the E-Kardex system for every medical process by 2011, Somsiri added.

"We believe advanced medical technology is something that every hospital can catch up with. If they have the money, they can invest in high-technology medical instruments. But it's not so easy to give patients a good feeling [about their treatment]. So, if we can satisfy patients by offering our services without any errors, it is more sustainable than focusing only on advanced medical technology," she said.

Samitivej recently won at the Asian Hospital Management Awards 2008 in two categories: Marketing PR or Promotional Project, and Human Resource Development.