Taoyuan hospital sets benchmark for community medical care

2017/12/25

Upon entering the reception hall of Landseed Hospital in northern Taiwan’s Taoyuan City, people are greeted not with the pungent smell of medicine and disinfectant, but with the rich aroma of coffee and fresh pastries. What heave into sight are not lines of people queuing at reception desks or walls of medical posters; rather, the space is filled with paintings, sculptures and shelves lined with books.
 
 On the third floor of the building, the outpatient waiting area has been converted into a venue for exhibitions and performances. Paintings elegantly dot the walls, creating the atmosphere of a gallery. “Artworks can reduce patients’ anxiety as they wait for their appointments, helping improve the doctor-patient relationship,” said Victor Chang, the hospital’s founding superintendent.
 
 Chang said that when riding an elevator, all staffers must double as operators and practice appropriate etiquette. About 80 percent of visitors will respond by showing their appreciation, he added. “That positive feedback in turn further motivates our staffers to better serve patients.”
 
According to one resident of Taoyuan, Landseed is the first and only choice for his family. “The medical staffers always take the initiative to tell us what to do next, so we never feel at a loss,” he said.
 
 Since its establishment in 1995, Landseed has become a benchmark for community medical institutions in Taiwan. “While many mainland Chinese hospitals have sent staffers to Landseed to learn about community health care and hospital management, they are in fact more interested in finding out about our patient service principles,” Chang said. The hospital has established a set of standard operating procedures related to visitor interactions, including the proper way to greet people during tours of the facility.
 
 When asked about Landseed’s unique approach to visitor interactions, Chang said that the hospital instituted the policies so as to stand out in Taiwan’s competitive health care sector. As a regional institution rather than a major national medical center, Landseed needs to deliver exceptional service that creates an immediate impression on patients. This then provides an opportunity for the hospital to showcase its medical expertise, he said.
 
 Chang recalled that when Landseed was founded 22 years ago, he recruited physicians from several major hospitals. “While over 95 percent of our doctors and surgeons are from national medical centers, the turnover rate of our attending physicians is less than 5 percent,” he said.
 
 One of Landseed’s major service goals is to minimize the need for patients to travel to major hospitals. The institution aims to address 90 percent of health problems, ensuring that only the remaining 10 percent need to be referred to national medical centers. Chang said this commitment was inspired by his mentor Hsieh Bor-shen, former dean of National Taiwan University College of Medicine. Hsieh once said, “A physician can treat 100,000 patients in his lifetime, while a hospital can save 1 million people. But community medical centers can benefit 10 million people.”
 
For a long time in Taiwan, community health care was a synonym for poor quality treatment, with Chang attributing this perception to the fact that most community services were provided by nursing staffers rather than physicians. As the only medical institution owned and run by medical professionals, Landseed set about changing this by establishing the first physician-based community medical care system in the country.
 
 Landseed has also been promoting preventative care in neighboring communities since its establishment. In addition to setting up a notification and referral mechanism and a hospital-community medical information system, in 2002 it teamed up with several adjacent clinics to set up the first community-based medical network in southern Taoyuan, safeguarding the health of 1 million residents.
 
 Three years later, Landseed became the first medical institution in Taiwan to set up a call center, run by the hospital’s medical staff, that operates around the clock. All calls from individuals seeking treatment at Landseed’s partner clinics during off-hours are automatically transferred to the center, with on-duty medical staffers providing the necessary consultation. “In this way, the center can help reduce the number of emergency room visits,” Chang said, adding that such a system benefits both patients and medical institutions.
 
 According to statistics compiled by the Taiwan Association of Family Medicine, Landseed was the second largest recruiter of attending physicians in 2014, trailing only National Taiwan University Hospital.
 
 Is Landseed planning to become a national medical center? “No, we will always remain a community institution,” Chang said, adding that what the country needs most are community hospitals, and Landseed is committed to proving that such institutions can be top-notch facilities.

Source: Taiwan Today (http://taiwantoday.tw/news.php?unit=11&post=126947)