Bumrungrad aims to grow more than 10%
Bumrungrad International Hospital aims to increase revenue by more than 10 per cent next year and hopes to service about combined 1 million foreign and local patients, thanks to plans to open additional referral offices overseas and increase its capabilit
“We will have more than 1.1 million local and overseas patients visiting the hospital this year, and we expect to receive around half a million from total 3 million overseas patients expected to visit hospitals in Thailand next year,” said Num Tanthuwanit, chief executive officer and medical director.
The hospital will open more referral offices in many countries, including in Myanmar, and will establish its first offices in Cambodia and Indonesia.
“In the past five years, we have been growing [revenue] at an annual average rate of 10 per cent. Next year, we aim to grow by more than 10 per cent. We are maintaining our [core] markets [central and northern Asia, Australia, the United States and the Middle East], while gearing up to cover emerging markets offering opportunities, especially in our region [Myanmar, Cambodia and Indonesia],” said Num.
The CEO said the hospital would increase service capability at its head campus through investment in both technology and expanded medical facilities. It will enhance its nine centres of excellence and increase the capacity of its intensive care units and neonatal ICUs by next year.
“By 2015, we will have another 10 ICU beds and 12 NICU beds. We will increase the capability of our nine centres of excellence, such as our liver centres and eye centres. We are also focusing on increasing our in-patient department’s service capability, and expect to see in-patient revenue surpass that of the outpatient department; the current ratio is 50:50,” he said.
Under the ‘hub and spoke model’, the hospital will receive patients from its 16 referral offices overseas to its head campus.
“Next year, we will add another referral office in Myanmar to our three existing offices there,” said Num.
Apart from its referral offices, Bumrungrad has partnerships with 10 hospitals nationwide, with which it shares and exchanges knowledge through telemedicine and teleconferencing, said the chief executive.
“We position ourselves as the hospital leader in cutting-edge technology. We are always investing in [new] medical-technology systems,” he added.
In the latest example of this, the hospital has joined hands with IBM Thailand to implement IBM Watson for Oncology in the Kingdom.
Bumrungrad is one of four leading hospitals worldwide and the first outside North America to implement IBM Watson for Oncology.
Num said the beauty of IBM Watson cognitive computing was that it worked as an assistant to doctors.
It provides doctors with ‘big data’ for oncology in terms of cases and knowledge from around the world, while learning from the physicians at the same time. It enables doctors to shorten the time spent on each cancer case, while offering key data to inform their decision-making, he said.
The Watson cognitive-computing systems learn and interact naturally with people to extend what either humans or machines can do on their own, said Parnsiree Amatayakul, managing director of IBM Thailand.
They help experts make better decisions by penetrating the complexity of big data, she added.
“Watson is a cognitive technology that processes information more like a human than a computer by understanding naturally. We are proud that Bumrungrad International Hospital is the first hospital outside North America to implement the latest innovative technology – IBM Watson,” said the MD.
