New hospitals? New hospitals. When I started in the hospital landscape in 2008, Switzerland had 318 hospitals. The last census for 2018 has been published by the Federal Statistical Office at 281. But even before that, the «scene» was shrinking steadily.
Graphics. Development of hospitals and beds from 1947 to 2011 (left) and number of hospitals in Switzerland between 1998 and 2013 (right). Swiss Sources: H+, BFS, ZHAW.
Mergers, closures and the constant optimisation of all processes, treatments and digitalisation. My spontaneous question this time focused on – Are there any new openings? In 2016, Medinside reported on the Swiss hospital construction boom: around 70 projects, 15.3 billion USD.
Whatever the discussion focuses on or evaluates – the total economic benefits, including jobs, are simply enormous. In 2017, 496200 people (interpharma) were working in health care/pharmaceuticals – about 5.5% of the population.
Rendering: Rönesans Holding – The Istanbul Basaksehir City Hospital Project
A look at Europe. It is teeming with new hospital buildings and hospital renovations. But are there any astonishingly large projects? I found this one – a medical city with 8 buildings – the Basaksehir City Hospital:
Opening: 2020
Location: Instanbul (the future «capital of healthcare»)
Construction area: 1 million square meters
Beds: 2’862 (to become a healthcare hub)
Operating rooms: 89
To serve 32’700 patients/daily basis
Jobs/Staff: 10’000 – 4’300 in medical, 4’050 in services and 810 in administration
Seismic isolators: 2’068(world’s largest seismically isolated building)
Amount of iron used: 95 thousand tons (ten times the Eiffel tower)
Built by: Rönesans Healthcare Investment Turkey and Japan’s Sojitz as a Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model in 33 months with some 5’000+ workers.
Video: the «1 year to go, 1+ minute recap» (July 2019)
It goes without saying that processes, technology, infrastructure and everything else is at the state-of-the-art level.
It is not only this 1.5 billion USD project that causes gasping while reading and researching. Hospitals now and tomorrow. Hospitals today and tomorrow: drivers of new life, chances of survival, 1001 medical treatments, training, research, innovation, economic factor… the list is endless.
It is quite possible that another movement will be added in the future – people who move near such medical cities. Close to health, possibly working on site and using all possible transport routes and the nearby airport. Utopia? My original assumption of Healthopolis is moving from theory to reality. Slow but steady.
Let’s see if I can make it for the opening with my The WOW hospitals blog for live coverage. Congratulations to all involved. What a hospital.
Maurice Codourey
The WOW hospitals blog 