Dr. Khalid Mohammed Al Jalham, Director of the new Ambulatory Care Center, speaks during an interview. Pic: Kammutty VP / The Peninsula
Doha: The Ambulatory Care Center (ACC) of Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is offering patients an advanced new approach to surgical care in Qatar.
Patients are provided with the opportunity to receive the latest treatment in different specialities using advanced clinical and surgical practices within a single dedicated location, says a senior official. It provides day-care surgery - a model of care that means within 23 hours of undergoing a surgical procedure patients will be able to leave the hospital - and return to recover in the comfort of their own homes.
Also several outpatient clinics are available at the ACC, said Dr Khalid Mohammed Al Jalham, Director of ACC, while talking to The Peninsula. “The ACC is a new concept in Qatar as well as in the region to build a full hospital with the concept of ambulatory care. It is making an impact in all aspects on our practices. This hospital has 14 theatres, providing an opportunity to do more surgeries. It will impact on the waiting list of patients and improve it a lot. It will also impact positively on the Hamad General Hospital’s inpatient care as patients will have more chances to get care. This also will improve also the quality of care,” Dr Al Jalham said.
Dr Al Jalham said that the new world class facility is result of continuous efforts being made to improve patient care in the country. “HMC is really working hard to improve patient care in Qatar and providing high quality services, under the guidance of H E Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health. Having all new facilities in the Hamad bin Khalifa Medical City is really a privilege to us as surgeons and also it will give patients the high standards of care they deserve,” he said.
ACC is conducting surgeries in specialties as urology, ophthalmology, ENT (Ear, Nose Throat) and pediatric dental. Also outpatient clinics are available for urology, ophthalmology, ENT, pre-admission anesthesia, podiatry and liver disease. It also has clinics for all sub specialties under the same roof.
Although 90 percent of the surgeries are conducted under the day care service, ACC also has the facility to cater some patients who require a hospital stay for more than 23 hours.
“For some patients in different specialties it will be purely day care. For two of the specialties, ENT and ophthalmology, day care and inpatient services are available. For these two specialties, we want to be the centre of excellence. Rest of the specialties, we are doing surgeries for flexible cases, so they can get day care,” said Dr Al Jalham.
“Here we also provide the departments with extra units and have the facility for stage two recovery. That is different from inpatient services. First, the procedure will be conducted at the theatre, then patient will go to the first recovery area with a maximum stay of three hours. Then we move them to two areas either to inpatient care, if it is required to spend the night here or more than 24 hours or the patient will be moved to the stage two recovery, in which they can stay for 10 to 12 hours,” he added. “As a hospital we have put patient safety first on our priority chart. So we are opening gradually since May. Last month, in our clinics we saw 8200 appointments and conducted between 3500 to 4000 surgical procedures in all specialties available here. As this facility is becoming very busy and once its fully operational we would be able to conduct around 20,000 surgeries on monthly basis,” said Dr Al Jalham.
