SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

SNUH wins consignment management contract for UAE Royal Hospital

- Successfully overtaking outstanding hospitals across the globe, SNUH was selected as the consignment manager for an overseas medical institute equivalent to a general hospital

- Another achievement after concluding a 70 billion KRW worth of contract to export a hospital information system to Saudi Arabia

In a joint briefing on 10 July with the Ministry of Health and Welfare, Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH, President Byung-Hee Oh) announced that it won the consignment contract for UAE Royal Sheikh Khalifa Speciality Hospital (SKSH) for five years. It is the first case in Korea to be selected as the consignment manager for an overseas medical institute equivalent to a general hospital.

 

Located at Ras Al Khaimah, SKSH was donated by the UAE President to the local community and has been serving as a non-profit public hospital with 248 beds. It provides a specialized tertiary care for cancers, cardiac diseases, children’s diseases, emergency medicine, rehabilitation medicine, and neurological diseases.

 

The construction of the hospital building is completed with five floors above ground and one floor underground, occupying 200,000m2 of land area and 72,248m2 of total ground area. Installed with specialized medical equipment such as PET-CT (device used for diagnosing cancers), it is expected to officially open in early next year.

 

SNUH finally won the contract after ten months of competition which started in September 2013 when the world’s renowned hospitals such as Johns Hopkins Hospital and Stanford University Hospital in the US, King’s College Hospital in the UK, and Charite Hospital in Germany submitted their application and joined in the bidding competition. In early June, the Emirati Delegation from the UAE Presidential Office paid a visit to SNUH and had the opportunity to see the outstanding facilities and systems of SNUH firsthand. Finally, SNUH was selected as the consignment manager on 26 June and official contract will be signed in coming August.

As part of the project, SNUH will be in charge of the overall management of the hospital, including providing medical services to SKSH, training service for its medical staffs, and operating its hospital information system. On top of the 1 trillion KRW worth of financial support it gets from the UAE for running the hospital for five years, it is expected to gain a significant amount of profit in terms of intellectual property rights, including 7-8 billion KRW annual fees for the consignment management. Out of approximately 1,420 special medical staffs needed for SKSH, 15-20% will be selected from Korean medical staffs, including those at SNUH, and the rest will be recruited from the local community.

President Byung-Hee Oh remarked, “It is one of the most practical and tangible successes SNUH achieved so far in overseas projects since it has been working under the motto of ‘Bringing Korea’s Medical Service to the World.’ I am highly delighted that SNUH’s outstanding medical service and hospital management capacity have been recognized worldwide. The Korean government has also been very helpful throughout the whole process as there have been the presidential state visit to the UAE in May as well as unwavering support given by the Ministry of Health and Welfare.”

Minister of Health and Welfare Hyung-Pyo Moon said “SNUH’s successful bid for the consignment management marks a start of a new era for Korea’s medical export.”

With the aim of spreading Korea’s medical service to the world, SNUH strengthened the functions of its existing International Business Bureau and the International Healthcare Center in 2010 and was awarded with the Presidential Citation in recognition of its contribution in attracting foreign patients and venturing into overseas hospitals during the Medical Korea Award Ceremony hosted by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism and the Ministry of Health and Welfare in April 2013.

 

In particular, in late June of 2013, SNUH also successfully signed a contract of exporting the hospital information system worth 70 billion KRW to a total of six hospitals with approximately 3,000 beds belonging to the Ministry of Defense in Saudi Arabia. Furthermore, the contract is expected to bring more than 300 billion KRW of sales profit for the next five years as it will be exporting the hospital information system to Saudi Arabia through the establishment of a joint venture company.

 

In order to implement its globalization projects more efficiently and systematically, SNUH is planning to establish SNUH International. Once established, it will integrate all the international business and overseas ventures projects, which have been scattered across the main and branch hospitals of SNUH, and ultimately implement SNUH’s vision of ‘Bringing Korea’s Medical Service to the World.’