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Tag: hospitals

  • Private hospitals suffer pandemic inflicted losses

    Private hospitals suffer pandemic inflicted losses

    Private hospitals in HCMC and Hanoi are reporting losses after months of limited operations necessitated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

    After four years of making a profit, the Tam Duc Heart Hospital in HCMC’s District 7 posted a loss of VND13 billion ($571,440) in the third quarter this year.

    Its revenue plunged 63 percent to nearly VND54 billion.

    The hospital has cut down salaries but high overhead costs and additional Covid-19 measures remained major financial burdens.

    Its nine-month profit has fallen 86 percent year-on-year, the hospital said.

    In Binh Tan District, Trieu An Hospital posted its second quarterly loss in a row at VND22 billion, against VND14 billion in the second quarter.

    The hospital saw third-quarter revenues plunge 70 percent year-on-year.

    In Hanoi, the Transportation Hospital in Dong Da District saw a loss of VND11 billion in the third quarter, with revenue dropping 36 percent year-on-year to over VND24 billion.

    Its accumulated loss stands at nearly VND188 billion, the hospital said.

    Nationally, the number of health checks fell 10 percent year-on-year last year to VND167 million, according to the health ministry.

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  • Smart hospitals to boost cloud spending

    Smart hospitals to boost cloud spending

    Frost & Sullivan predicts that by 2025, 10% of hospitals globally will have completed or be in various stages of implementing smart hospital initiatives.

    The research firm projects significant market growth and billions of dollars in revenues for four key segments, including pharmacy automation, mobile asset tracking, data analytics, and cloud computing.

    Frost forecasts the market opportunity to reach about $11 billion with the data analytics market for smart hospitals reaching revenues of $5.9 billion in 2018. The cloud computing market is expected to hit revenues of $5.1 billion.

    There is currently ambiguity around the term “smart”. Transformational Health Industry Analyst Siddharth Shah says a true smart hospital acknowledges digitization as only the first step, and focuses on three major areas – operational efficiency, clinical excellence, and patient-centricity – with technological advances leveraged for these three areas to derive smart insights.

    “Not every hospital needs to become smart in a single step. Instead, the approach they need to take is to implement smart solutions, one by one, and then allow newer solutions to integrate with existing ones in the journey toward becoming smart,” said Shah.

    “This allows hospitals to implement solutions with limited financial investments, reap rewards and ROI, and then implement the next solution.”

    As for companies, some of the most advanced solution sets are being developed by GE Healthcare for patient flow, including its “Command Center” solution for the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Also noteworthy is the ThoughtWire Ambiant platform, which has customized features, such as the Code Blue events reduction solution developed for Hamilton Health Sciences in Canada.

    IBM is developing and now marketing the “SmartRoom” concept along with the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. Omnicell has developed pharmacy automation solutions in use by thousands of hospitals and health systems around the world.

    In terms of regional readiness for the adoption of the smart hospital concept, North America leads, followed by Europe and Asia Pacific regarding technological sophistication, regulatory landscape, spending power, and end-user readiness.

    However, the hotspots for current smart hospitals are concentrated in the Asia Pacific region, including Dubai, South Korea, Singapore and Australia, some of which cater to the medical tourism industry as well. Canada and Finland are also hotspots.

    “The two largest challenges obstructing hospitals from achieving the smart hospital vision are interoperability and cybersecurity. To truly achieve a ‘smart’ status by deriving intelligent insights, various devices, systems and networks in the hospital must ‘talk’ to one another in ways that are coherent and complete for a holistic analysis,” observed Shah.

    “Digitization brings in additional vulnerabilities in a hospital for hackers to target, making cybersecurity a challenge.”

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  • Vital signs look weak for private hospitals in Saigon

    Vital signs look weak for private hospitals in Saigon

    Some are being forced to offload their assets and close with the weight of massive loans bearing down on them. Major private hospitals in Ho Chi Minh City are struggling to turn a profit despite making massive investments in infrastructure and equipment. Some of them have even called it quits or have sold out to other investors.

    By the time International General Phuc An Khang Hospital in District 2 wrote to health authorities in April to inform them it would be closing after just two years, it had had already racked up accumulated losses of VND60 billion ($2.64 million).

    With 500 beds meeting international standards, Phuc An Khang hospital used to make VND3 billion per month in revenue.

    But that sum was only enough to cover staff salaries, and the hospital had to use its own capital for other expenses such as medicine, director Mai Tien Dung told in an earlier interview.

    “The pressure from the loan we took out in the first place to build the hospital is probably the main reason for our downfall,” he said.

    It’s a similar story for Phu Tho General Hospital in Tan Phu District.The hospital’s investor plans to sell equipment worth VND200 billion and other assets to pay outstanding salaries to staff.

    This hospital closed its doors after its investor failed to pay interest on a total loan of VND120 billion to 30 lenders.

    After the investor jumped ship, the lenders seized the hospital’s equipment and turned it into a parking lot.

    Fallen star

    Once regarded as a bright light in the country’s high-end medical sector, Vu Anh International General Hospital in Go Vap District is now looking for partners to save its business.

    Doctor Vo Xuan Son, director of Exson International Clinic in District 10, said that a number of factors are making it difficult for private hospitals, including unfair policies between public and private facilities.

    “Revenue at private hospitals is fairly stable, but their profits are always low because, unlike public hospitals, they have to bear expenses for hiring premises, equipment depreciation and corporate income tax,” Son said.

    Management is another headache for private hospitals as most directors are doctors with no business experience, he added.

    More than 170 private hospitals with 45,000 beds are operating in Vietnam, according to data from the Vietnam Private Hospital Association, and the country has been calling for more private investments in public hospitals to improve service quality in the public sector.

    Total expenditure for healthcare service in Vietnam makes up 5.8 percent of the country’s economy, the highest in the region, said the Vietnam 2035 report released last year by the World Bank and Ministry of Planning and Investment.

  • Private hospitals struggle to stay open in Vietnam

    Private hospitals struggle to stay open in Vietnam

    Many private hospitals in HCM City are on the verge of shutting down as most average patients prefer cheaper prices at public hospitals. Diep Van Phat, chairman of the International Phuc An Khang Hospital (Ipak), ordered employees to stop receiving patients as the hospital will shut down on April 28.

    Ipak Hospital was converted into a modern hospital from five blocks apartment buildings with an investment of VND2.5trn (USD109m).

    It was hoped that Ipak could reduce the overload at several hospitals in District 2, District 9 and Thu Duc District and some patients from Dong Nai Province.

    However, hundreds of doctors and nurses haven’t received their wages for February and March as the hospital lacks patients.

    Two firms have been invited to invest in Ipak but nothing has progressed. The hospital has incurred VND60bn (USD2.6m) in debt.

    About 4,000 patients who have just registered their health insurance here will be transferred to other hospitals and 50% of the employees have no idea where to go to after the hospital is closed.

    The 72-story Phu Tho Hospital in Tan Phu District was closed several years ago after being put into operation for only six years.

    Debts to the employees and shareholders haven’t been settled.

    The hospital is being offered at VND390bn (USD17m) but hasn’t attracted any buyer.

    No one believes the hospital can thrive and the price is deemed too high for a regular real estate investment.

    City International Hospital in Binh Tan District is also struggling. It was opened in 2014 with an investment of USD80m.

    But now they have to cover USD1m in losses every month.

    Tran Thi Lam, chairman of Hoa Lam Corporation, the hospital’s investor, hopes that the city authorities and the Ministry of Health will support them with more access to funds and co-operation with public hospitals.

    Many private hospitals in Vietnam don’t participate in primary health care activities so patients can’t use their health insurance there and eventually are put off by private hospitals.

    Meanwhile, the people with health insurance in public hospitals are complaining about the treatment difference.

    Experts have also complained about private companies being hired to supply equipment in many public hospitals and can earn huge commission fees.

    Some tests, operations and health check-ups in public hospitals actually have higher fees than in private hospitals.

    It’s clear that with better equipment, the patients will be first to enjoy the benefits but it’s also creating a disparity as patients who don’t use health insurance are offered better customer services.

    61-year-old Nguyen Van Tuan said he felt self-pity sometimes. “I wait from morning until noon to have my name called and the health check-up is sloppy. People with money are guided by the hospital employees to the designated rooms and taken care of. The process is much quicker too,” he said.

    Dr Le Van Toan who retired from a local public hospital to opened a private clinic said it’s like there was a “private hospital” inside the public hospital where patients were treated like gods.

    But everywhere else is overcrowded and patients sleep or eat out in the hallways.

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