Hospitals, costs, tariff systems, discussions, indignation and necessities. As a healthcare professional in the Swiss market, I am familiar above all with the figures and plans and political votes of one of the smallest countries of 194 worldwide.
The costs. The hospital building, the whole infrastructure inside, the wage costs and so on and so forth. Sometimes it helps to include reference points as opening up perspectives in avalanches of opinions.
The Royal Adelaide Hospital in Australia.
The top 8 most expensive buildings from 2016:
Statistics of Michael Smith News (and Emporis), April 2016
Update of costs to $2.3 billions by news.com.au April 2018
The RAH at a glance, the state flagship hospital – South Australia.
– technical completion and commercial acceptance in the first semester 2017
– first patient August 14th and first surgery August 21st in 2017
– part of the Central Adelaide Local Health Network CALHN
– 800 beds (40 beds mental health unit)
– over 7000 staff and volunteers
– estimated; 85’000 inpatients, 400’000 outpatients a year
– 70 gardens & courtyards (3.8 hectares of landscaped environment)
– 4 Star Green Star – Healthcare Design v1 rating
– 70 emergency department treatment spaces
– one of the biggest Automated Pharmacy Distribution Systems in the nation
– more than 80 automated dispensing cabinets in patient wings to support the accurate and timely distribution of medicines
– largest automated microbiology system in the southern hemisphere > diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases
– digital instrument tracking system
– low volatile organise compound (VOC) paints, carpets etc. and an acoustic design to minimize noise
25 AGV’s Automated Guided Vehicles; 1.7m long, 275kg flat stainless steel, working behind the scenes – travelling via 14 dedicated lifts and 27 lift lobbies, driving speeds of up to two metres per second (maximum).
What an impressive fragment from the list of peculiarities of this hospital of the coastal city and cosmopolitan capital of the state of South Australia with more than 1.3 million inhabitants.
ROBOTIC drug dispensing and delivery at the new Royal Adelaide Hospital – less chance of human error – urgent requests could arrive within minutes, via a pneumatic tube system. (Jill Pengelley, The Advertiser – adelaidenow Aug 2017)
What do we expect from modern healthcare? Check-in kiosks, updates via SMS, waiting area management with displays and volunteers, several cafeterias and shops, parking garage with around 2300 car spaces… More hotel than hospital?
More: The 2 minutes Royal Adelaide Hospital Opening Video. And the 3 minutes Outpatient Journey video.
Entrance and ICU Intensive Care Unit beds at RAH Adelaide
Aerial View of the RAH Adelaide by stockoz.com.au
Thoughts and conclusions
The uncompromising patient focus. After more than 10 years of attending congresses and healthcare events: Since there are no universally valid recipes for the future of hospitals anywhere in the world, it probably takes courageous people who dare to build lighthouses of innovation again and again.
Ready for praise, criticism, demonisation, achievement of the KPIs (key performance index), savings, additional expenditure – in short, modernising the hospital world. And they are prepared to make the necessary investments for digitization and automation, which will only reach the planned cost flattening after a while.
As always with significant changes, the studies show us in about 20 years what really happened. Complaining is easy – engaging causes friction. I love healthcare.
Maurice Codourey
The WOW hospitals blog 