HAVING a hospital network in the Philippines will help in making healthcare efficient, affordable and accessible, a top official of Metro Pacific Hospital Holdings, Inc. (MPHHI) said.
“Hospitals [in the Philippines] were actually left alone to do their own thing so there was a lack of standardization across the network,” MPHHI Chief Executive Officer Harish Pillai said in an interview.
“We have a few good hospitals, especially in the National Capital Region, like Makati Medical Center and Cardinal Santos Medical Center but there’s a great value to leverage the power of a network,” Mr. Pillai added.
According to the official, MPHHI addressed this by introducing co-creation and collaboration principles through the creation of experience councils.
“As a holding company, we now have clinical functions. We have a group chief medical officer, we are now going to appoint a chief nursing officer, we have a quality head, patient experience head, and information technology head,” Mr. Pillai said.
“This new leadership at the holding company will influence our hospitals also to really work in a totally different way focusing on the code that is basically patient-focused,” Mr. Pillai added.
Although the Philippines is fortunate to have a very talented healthcare workforce, Mr. Pillai said that since it is fragmented, collaboration among doctors is difficult.
“So, one of our big projects is the digital architecture that we are trying to create. That will really benefit patients at large, especially in the provinces,” Mr. Pillai said.
Through this project, medical experts will be able to share their expertise in a digital ecosystem with the hospitals in the area.
Mr. Pillai said that the digital ecosystem will allow patients in provinces to access the same level of expertise as those in Metro Manila.
To date, MPHHI has 19 hospitals in its network, making it the largest private hospital operator in the country. It also has two allied health colleges, a growing number of primary care clinics and a cancer care center, and a central clinical laboratory. — Justine Irish D. Tabile