Healthcare For The Future

Prince Court Medical Centre

39, Jalan Kia Peng,
50450 Kuala Lumpur.
03-2160 0000
www.princecourt.com

International Collaboration Prince Court Medical Centre (PCMC) is one of the latest and probably the most prominent medical centre located in the heart of Kuala Lumpur.

According to Dr Junaidi Ismail, director of the Business Development and Corporate Affairs Department in PCMC, the initial concept of the hospital first came about when Petronas, being an oil and gas company, wanted to create a world-class centre for the treatment of its employees suffering from burns.

“Petronas ultimately decided it would be best to build a multidisciplinary centre that is able to support the core services intended while catering for other needs. That was how PCMC was born,” says Dr Junaidi. Fully owned by Petronas, PCMC is managed through a collaboration between Vamed GmbH in Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna (MUV).

MUV provides the clinical know-how and manages the clinical part of the hospital, including doctors and staff, treatment and equipment, while Vamed, a management specialist which has managed close to 70 medical facilities throughout the world, is in charged of the nonclinical part such as facility management and operations.
The collaboration with these two international bodies offers a high level of clinical and management direction aimed at the highest international standards.

“An exchange of knowledge is made possible between PCMC and the MUV, whereby senior faculty members from MUV are brought to PCMC on a rotational basis,” explains Dr Junaidi. Conducive Environment For Healing “Healthcare today does not stop at prescribing medicine to the patient and telling him that he will get better tomorrow,” says Dr Junaidi. “It requires a holistic approach. This means that we have to take into consideration the setting in which healthcare is rendered.

“The environment itself contributes to the healing process. If you have a crowded and noisy environment, people tend to heal slower. “Therefore, PCMC has made it a priority to provide an utmost desirable environment for healing.”

This is ever so evident from the moment one walks into the hospital. There are towering ceilings, glass panels used as the roof to provide the hospital with natural lighting, water features, tropical plants and the non-existence of ‘hospital smell’ due to a special disinfectant used. “Even the hospital room, we try not to make it feel, smell and look like one as much as possible.”

A Hospital For All Malaysians

Another unique aspect of PCMC is that there are only single rooms. “People tend to have a misconception that we are just catering for the rich and famous, but the single rooms are there for a reason.

“For example, if a patient with a fractured leg is placed in the same room with a person with respiratory infection, the chances of him coughing and developing some respiratory disease is much higher. Therefore, the single rooms are one of the ways to manage infection possibilities.” Dr Junaidi notes that single room rates in PCMC are the same, if not cheaper than that of another private hospital in the Klang Valley. “Our radiology, pharmacy, implants and medication charges shouldn’t differ as well because we are getting them from the same suppliers like other private hospitals.

“In terms of the doctors fees – unfortunately not many Malaysian knows this – but the Private Healthcare Facilities and Services Act 1998 actually specifies the limit to which doctors can charge for consultation and procedures. So, this should not differ greatly from other facilities either.
“The only area which we can be expensive, is on certain procedures which are very unique in this part of the world, and at many a time, we are the first to perform it in Malaysia.

“An example would be robotic-assisted surgery. We are in fact, the only private facility that performs robotic-assisted surgery. Although there is a premium to pay for this type of procedure due to the cost of owning and maintaining the technology, patients will experience many benefits, such as less bleeding, shorter recovery time and hospital stay, less complications post pocedure and less pain, among others.

“PCMC is here to cater for Malaysians from all walks of life; being labelled as costly cannot be further from the truth,” Dr Junaidi notes.

Screening & Training of Staff

To ensure the quality of its staff, every person (including doctors) applying for work with PCMC has to go through a very stringent screening process, a process known as primary source verification.

“We actually go right back to the doctor’s basic degree. We contact and get testimonials from the university which the degree was earned. We ask questions like, ‘How is this person? Did he really serve his compulsory period? Did he perform well? Is he confident enough to do these procedures? And etc. “When all the criteria set for the doctors have been fulfilled, only then are they accepted into the hospital.

“Besides, there are certain procedures that the doctors are allowed to do based on their qualifications. This is verified during the screening process. Hence, we do not have doctors doing what they are not supposed to do in this hospital – it is impossible. The hospital IT system will reject any doctor who tries to book a procedure which is not approved beforehand,” reveals Dr Junaidi.

In total, the medical population in PCMC is close to 500, with about 80 doctors, and the rest nurses, paramedics and care aids. PCMC is always encouraging its staff to obtain new knowledge.
“If we find that we don’t have a group of nurses with a certain required skill set, we will invest and send them out for training and attachment. “We have sent our doctors, paramedics, nurses and other staff to North America and MUV for attachments to gather new skills,” Dr Junaidi shares.

Equipments & Facilities

Medicine is an ever evolving field, so are medical procedures, techniques and equipment. In line with PCMC’s vision to be the leading healthcare provider in Asia, the hospital has invested wisely, though heavily into the best cutting-edge medical equipment the world can offer.

“For example, the basic requirement for air filtration in the operation theatre (OT) is to have HEPA filters to ensure there are no microorganisms. But we went a step further by having all our 10 operating rooms equipped with laminar airflow technology which controls how the air of the entire room moves.

“This creates an area of air around the surgery table where turbulence is non-existent and prevents the settling of micro-particles on the patient’s wound which could contribute to a higher infection rate. With this technology, there is zero micro-particle count on our operating table,” Dr Junaidi says.
Centres of Excellence
PCMC has five Centres of Excellence:
1. Heart and Lung
2. Plastic Surgery, Cosmetology,
Dermatology & Burns
3. Oncology
4. Urology, Nephrology & Men’s Health
5. Women & Children
These five areas were chosen at the inception of the hospital because it was believed that they were the areas which the Malaysian community needed the most attention, looking upon the health and medical environment of the country.

“Therefore, we hope to contribute most in these areas to help build up the healthcare level and status of Malaysia,” says Dr Junaidi. PCMC has come a long way to ensure the highest quality in every aspect of the hospital, be it environment, procedures, equipment and facilities, staff or services. It is their commitment to be the best in Asia – to give the best, but not at the expense of cost.

“Because, first and foremost,the hospital is born of a Malaysian vision meant for Malaysians,” stresses Dr Junaidi.

ACCREDITATIONS & RECOGNITIONS
PCMC is a JCI and MSQH-accredited private hospital.

• Malaysian Society for Quality in Health (MSQH) is a non-profit, independent
• organisation which ensures continuous quality improvement in healthcare
• services and facilities in Malaysia. It is affiliated to the International Society for
• Quality in Healthcare (ISQua), a federated structure that oversees programmes
• for healthcare accreditation worldwide.
• Joint Commission International (JCI) is the global arm of the US-based Joint
  Commission on the Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO), the
  same body that certifies over 18,000 hospitals in the United States.
• The hospital has recently been awarded the Frost and Sullivan Healthcare
  Provider of the Year 2010.
• The hospital is a Ministry of Health-registered Yellow Fever Vaccine Centre.