INTERVIEW
Bumrungrad Int’l Hospital eyes providing ‘worldclass holistic healthcare’ CEO Artirat Charukitpipat shares the plans and achievements the hospital has achieved under her leadership.
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umrungrad Hospital has been providing services to its patients both locally and internationally for four decades. Despite the challenges faced by the industry, Bumrungrad, a quaternary care hospital, has continued to adapt and innovate by providing “highly complex” medical care and by investing in data management, amongst others, to improve the services it provides to its patients. Healthcare Asia spoke with CEO Artirat Charukitpipat to talk about the recent initiatives, achievements, as well as plans of the hospital to attain its goal of providing worldclass and innovative healthcare. What are the principles that guide Bumrungrad in providing services to its patients? For four decades, Bumrungrad International has been guided by the principles that are most appreciated by our patients: We aim to provide care with the highest quality and safety at International World Class standards, with world-renowned Thai hospitality. We don’t rest on our past successes; instead we continuously move forward pushing the boundaries, improving on our best with scientific and academic-based innovations. By being quick to adopt new technology and innovation in the fields of IT, precision medicine, and genetics enable us to be “future ready”. Most importantly, it is our people whom we engage and develop, who drive our success. Our brand is not only highly visible in our community, but we are part of the community—engaging and building on trust and sustainability with good governance and ethics. Can you tell us what recent innovations Bumrungrad has integrated in its services? With the current situation, Bumrungrad has been an early adopter in providing care for our international patients through the telemedicine platform and backed that up with medication delivery and mobile laboratory and radiology services for our local patients. We are at the forefront in genetics and precision medicine and have integrated this platform into our clinical practices. Our patients benefit from knowing which medications will cause adverse reactions even before they take the medication and our doctors can adjust the medication dosages accordingly to optimize therapeutic benefits. We have deployed advanced marketing technology which enables us to efficiently engage our patients through all social media platforms. The technology 18
HEALTHCARE ASIA
We don’t rest on our past successes; instead we continuously move forward pushing the boundaries, improving on our best with scientific and academicbased innovations
Artirat Charukitpipat, CEO, Bumrungrad International Hospital
helps us effectively analyse and integrate data from these platforms for active engagement of our patients. We also have innovated and developed solutions in postCOVID-19 “wellness” with the new business model implementation in our main campus. What achievements has Bumrungrad Hospital attained under your leadership? In the healthcare industry, Bumrungrad International Hospital stands out as a quaternary care provider, offering highly complex medical care with advanced innovations. With the international quality standards, each year, international patients from over 190 countries all over the world make up for 50% of Bumrungrad patients, or more than 520,000 patients. Dealing with the pandemic during the past years, Bumrungrad has put in place the highest level of monitoring and screening measures for the COVID-19 virus adhering to the country’s national guidelines. The COVID-19 Command Center was also set up to respond accordingly to the changing situations daily and the Hospital Incidence Command System is comparable to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control standards. Moreover, Bumrungrad International’s medical laboratory was the first private hospital laboratory in Thailand to be certified to undergo
