Healthy decisions Project partners
Healthy decisions Written by Nye Longman Produced by Craig Daniels 3
The King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre is transforming the patient experience in Saudi Arabia using a variety of technological strategies
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he King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC) in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is exploiting cutting-edge technology in order to usher in an unprecedented change in both staff and patient behaviour, while simultaneously bolstering its capacity as a business unit. Various strategic initiatives have not only brought about in-house improvements, but have also seen the institution receive both local and international recognition. Operations At the heart of the KFSH&RC’s operations are five core values which consist of teamwork, compassion, integrity, and quality, as well as an
unshaking commitment to the needs of its patients. While patient-centred medicine is not a particularly new topic, its intersection with tech trends such as big data, smart technology and IT systems is certainly off the beaten track. CIO Osama Alswailem, MD MA explains: “We are trying to help patients and staff adapt to information technology by redesigning and re-engineering workflows with the goal of providing better patient care.” KFSH&RC’s first Hospital was established in the Kingdom’s capital Riyadh in 1975 with two further facilities later established in Jeddah. Across its operations, KFSH&RC employs 14,200 staff, including 1,226 physicians and 3,875 nurses, serving 1,308 beds. The facilities provide the highest quality care across 18 departments, a range of specialisms which includes everything from oncology and cardiology, to ophthalmology and clinical nutrition. Knowledge-sharing and teaching are key experiences for clinical staff at the Hospital, where there is an emphasis on educating the public to be more health conscious and to take as much responsibility for their treatment as possible. Its internal training and development department supports life-long skill development and learning, as well as a specialised 18-month long ‘future leaders’ training programme. A new breed of CIO Alswailem’s role as CIO itself is indicative of a sea change in the industry and, while not a total
Key Personnel
Osama Alswailem Chief Information Officer
Osama AlSwailem holds the position of CIO and is an accomplished medical and IT professional with extensive experience in medical informatics and information technology. In addition to this role Alswailem is Assisstant Professor of Medical Informatics at AlFaisal University in Riyadh where he shares his knowledge and experience with some of the brightest young minds in the medical field.
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Data Center in the HITA Building at KFSH&RC Riyadh
break from the past, represents a happy meeting between old and new. As a qualified MD by profession, he is one of very few physicians to move from treating patients to overseeing the technological wellbeing of an entire institution. He says: “In 2014 the Healthcare Information Technology Affairs (HITA) department was formed through unifying the Informatics and Technology divisions. It has been a very challenging and rewarding journey from a Physician to a CIO. “I believe healthcare CIOs play a more vital role compared to other corporate sector counterparts. It almost goes without saying that an unplanned outage or mishap can have greater consequences - thus the CIO has to always ensure each node is treated as though it is a lifeline, directly or indirectly. CIOs in healthcare aren’t just technically competent but require greater foresight and vision as to the impact each decision has on patient health and also continuum of care.”
“I believe healthcare CIOs play a more vital role compared to other corporate sector counterparts. It almost goes without saying that an unplanned outage or mishap can have greater consequences thus the CIO has to always ensure each node is treated as though it is a lifeline” – Osama Alswailem, CIO
Build A Cost-Effective, Optimised IT Solutions By Choosing The Right Technology Partner Total Technical Triangle (3T) has managed to rapidly grow a significant portfolio of loyal customers and is proud of being a major IT provider to KFSH RC. Total Technical Triangle (3T) views its customers as partners and works together intelligently to insure their needs.
www.3tsa.com/new
The nature of our various partnerships illustrates the depth of our commitments.
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TOTAL TECHNICAL TRIANGLE Total Technical Triangle, known as 3T, is one of the leading IT infrastructure company in Saudi Arabia. 3T was established in 2005 as part of Midis Group, ever since it is constantly increasing technical and project implementation capabilities, in order to deliver groundbreaking technologies and services with the best of IT Vendors to its customers. Through a wide range of highly specialized services, encompassing tailor-made IT infrastructure, security, and automation systems, 3T guarantee you a more agile, efficient, and profit-making company, while ensuring you optimal visibility, security and control of information. “Developing reliable, leading IT services that will add value at each and every stage of the business development cycle and that will have a direct and a long-term impact on customers’ bottom line” 3T ensures you a full service that covers all aspects of IT infrastructure, and offer solutions, such as: • Data center preparation for medium to large enterprises • Virtualization and cloud computing solutions • Business continuity and disaster recovery solutions • IT operational and administration solutions • Network and communication solutions • Office facility management systems • Edge and endpoint security solutions Tel: +966 11 4734005 Email: info@3tsa.com Website: www.3tsa.com/new
Technological edge Alswailem explained that the function of technology within the Hospital (and his role as CIO) was shifting from a set of processes quietly humming away in the background to becoming an irreplaceable tool for both patients and medical professionals alike. He says: “Historically, the focus with IT was mainly just to keep the lights on and provide simple support functions. What this has evolved into we call ‘Health IT’ whose success we are now publishing in a number of medical journals.” “Technology has become integrated in our lives and the impact cannot be ignored. It has become the driver for what healthcare facilities are trying to achieve, whether through medical equipment, efficiency, quality, or improving patients’ experience and care.” “The hardest part has been having to balance that with the physician-patient experience. The human interaction and touch is still much needed and desired in healthcare; having to build technology around that has been one of the biggest challenges. You never want to keep the physician busy entering and gathering data where the patient feels ignored or feels secondary to healthcare systems.” Taking patient engagement seriously, the Hospital has integrated a range of wearable devices with patient electronic medical records (EMR) so professionals are able to track and monitor an individual’s glucose, blood pressure and weight remotely. This has given physicians more data to work with, and has enabled them
‘Alongside integrating this focus operationally, the hospital is currently commercialising its expertise, and already runs the IT systems of a nearby private hospital, with a goal to become a national innovation leader in the next few years’
KING FAISAL SPECIALIST HOSPITAL & RESEARCH CENTRE
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to meet pre and post-surgery requirements. This has reduced the number of trips that patients need to make to the hospital, saving them and physicians precious time. Following the success of implementing wearable technology in this way, Alswailem and his team are looking at a more sophisticated, hospital-wide rollout. He said: “Patient experience is becoming an increasingly important subject these days. Everybody’s talking about the need to engage and empower patients to become engaged with the healthcare process. Most of the healthcare activity is happening outside the four walls of the Hospital and active patient engagement has to be insured; the patient has to have the tools and the collaboration to have this capability. The diabetic biro gives an example – patients now only need to see their physicians once every six months.”
14.2k Number of jobs to be supported by King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre
A view of the Server Room in the Data Centre (HITA Building)
KING FAISAL SPECIALIST HOSPITAL RESEARCH CENTRE KFSH&RC Celebrates 20 Years of& Collaboration with Avaya for Better Healthcare More than 20 years ago, King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center (KFSH&RC) kicked off a partnership with Avaya to implement innovative technology as one of the ways to improve healthcare service delivery in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Inaugurated in 1975, KFSH&RC has since expanded its facilities to three major campuses in Riyadh and Jeddah and includes more than 20 health outreach services around the kingdom. The Hospital has continued to work with key partners who share its vision. From its origins in AT&T, then Lucent, Avaya has continued to prove its leading reputation by providing reliable services to its partners. Avaya has continued its relationship with KFSH&RC by providing the Hospital with the latest and best solutions localized to the needs of its services for both patients and staff. Avaya has worked alongside KFSH&RC to offer a range of services, from traditional telephony solutions to IP telephony and collaboration environments, and has been able to address challenges both big and small. Reliable Communication In its long history with KFH&RC, Avaya has applied innovative solutions that deliver on the specific requirements of the Hospital. In a hospital environment where instant, reliable communication can literally mean a matter of life and death, effective communication is a major component in the collaboration environment. KFSH&RC has more than 25000 Avaya Aura users, connecting workers remotely across different locations. When institutions like KFSH&RC bring in technologies that have been built abroad, they are faced with many challenges: customization, education, and ease of use can be issues with out-of-the-box technology, resulting in the ultimate challenge of underutilization by the team. The partnership with Avaya has allowed technology to be easily and quickly localized to KFSH&RC needs.
“Avaya’s team and systems bring a wealth of continued support and education to our environment. It all boils down to simplicity and ease of use and that’s what Avaya brings with every new initiative,” says Osama Alswailem, Chief Information Officer, KFH&RC. By identifying areas where instant collaboration between specific teams is urgent and requires instant team formation, Avaya and the KFSH&RC team have developed an automated alert system that can bring assigned teams to specific scenarios together to take quick decisions. This system has been rolled out to manage emergency situations, receive and dispatch emergency calls and send alerts to specific groups within the hospital to respond – just one of the customized solutions that has been tested and deployed successfully at KFSH&RC. Trusted Services The goal of the Hospital and its staff is to deliver trusted, reliable healthcare services to its patients. Simply put, staff should be able to do their job without worrying about the tools and means they use to communicate: it should be natural, easy, instant, reliable, fast and mobile. “Communication in a healthcare environment is critical because it helps define next steps and it gives clinicians the opportunity to define outcomes. The means of communication can vary from people, to signs, to charts and through systems. Our job is to ensure integration of these means and make it as easy as possible for the clinicians in serving the patient,” Osama Alswailem says. “Innovative partners understand the mission of KFSH&RC and what we are striving to achieve. They minimize risk, align themselves and deliver a hospital-centric solution that keeps KFSH&RC as the regional leader in healthcare.” For more information please visit our website: www.Avaya.com
KFSH&RC received its Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) Stage 7 accreditation last year based on its adoption of the Electrical Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM). Not only is the Hospital at the highest stage of integration, its ambulatory service is the only outfit outside of North America to have reached this level. Ever since the institution first realised the vital difference that adopting cuttingedge technology could make; becoming a leader in this aspect has been a top priority for KFSH&RC. Alongside integrating this focus operationally, the Hospital is currently commercialising its expertise, and already runs the IT systems of a nearby private hospital, with a goal to become a national innovation leader in the
King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre
‘Taking patient engagement seriously, the hospital has integrated a range of wearable devices with patient electronic medical records (EMR) so professionals are able to track and monitor an individual’s glucose, blood pressure and weight remotely’
Connecting health and care in the Middle East for nearly three decades Congratulations to King Faisal Specialist Hospital & Research Centre for achieving the first HIMSS 7 Ambulatory outside North America.
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next few years. This is supported by a number of universities in the KSA, as well as strategic partnerships with global technology leaders such as Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Cerner, Avaya and Oracle, as well as regional partners such as T3. Under Alswailem’s supervision, KFSH&RC has proven that technology can impact positively on patient care beyond the boundaries of its facilities, whether used by the patients themselves or its teams of highly trained healthcare professionals. Having developed expertise never before seen in the region, the Hospital has been able to use its knowledge and influence towards the advancement of patient care.
Opposite: HITA Building at KFSH&RC Riyadh - In addition, HITA has 2 other office locations in Riyadh at the Disaster Recovery Building and MSSB. HITA offices are also located in Jeddah.
P.O Box 3354 Riyadh 11211 +966 114647272 www.kfshrc.edu.sa