A formal agreement signed between Seoul National University Hospital and UAE’s Ministry of Presidential Affairs for operation & management of Sheikh Khalifa Specialty Hospital
Seoul National University Hospital (SNUH, Byung-Hee Oh, President and CEO) has announced the signing of a formal agreement on a 5-year management and operation of Sheikh Khalifa Specialty Hospital (SKSH) in UAE.
The signing took place in the Ministry of Presidential Affairs in Abu Dhabi, UAE. High-level officials from Korea attended the event, including Byung-Hee Oh, President and CEO of SNUH; Myung-Whun Sung, CEO of SKSH; Chong-bum Ahn, President’s Secretary for Economic Affairs; Young-hyun Choi, Assistant Minister for Planning and Coordination for the Ministry of Health and Welfare; and Deputy Minister of UAE’s Ministry of Presidential Affairs, H.E. Ahmad Juma Al Zaabi, who is also Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Medical Office.
The Sheikh Khalifa Specialty Hospital is located in Ras Al Khaimah and was established by the president of the UAE as a contribution to the local community. It is a non-profit public hospital with 248 hospital beds.
Being a tertiary care hospital, SKSH focuses on cancer, cardiovascular disease, pediatric disease, emergency medicine, rehabilitation medicine, and neurological disease. The hospital is a 5-story building with one of its levels being below ground. The lot area is 200,000m2 and the total floor area is 72,248m2. Construction of the building is already complete and it is equipped with PET-CT (equipment for cancer diagnosis) as well as other state-of-the-art medical equipment. The hospital will start operating later this year by opening the cancer and cardiovascular departments. The rest of the departments will be open in April of 2015.
After bidding with world’s most renowned hospitals, SNUH won the contract in operation and management of SKSH. This is the first time that a Korean hospital was selected to operate a major general hospital overseas. This achievement shows how Korea’s medical technology and system found a successful footing in the heart of healthcare in the Middle East, including the UAE, and signals the start of the era of Korea’s medical export.
Under the terms of this contract, SNUH will be responsible for the overall management and operation of SKSH, including provisions of medical service, hiring of medical staff, and establishment of hospital information system for the next five years. During this period, UAE will provide an operation budget of more than 1 trillion won, which is expected to create a significant amount of national wealth in Korea.
Out of 1,420 staff members of SKSH, 15-20% of them will come from Korea, which includes SNUH staff, and the rest of the members will be recruited locally.
The Letter of Intent, on participating in the project for management and operation of SKSH, was submitted in September of 2013. SNUH was selected after an open bidding process, in which internationally recognized hospitals from USA, UK, and Germany participated. To support the winning of the contract, President Park Geun-hye visited UAE this May and, in response, the UAE President’s delegation came to Korea to visit SNUH and its branch institutions (SNU Bundang Hospital, Gangnam Center, and Boramae Medical Center). After a deliberate evaluation, SNUH was selected as service provider of SKSH on June 26th.
The President and CEO of SNUH, Byung-Hee Oh, stated that “this achievement comes after winning the bid last June, to export approximately 70 billion won worth of hospital information system to six hospitals in Saudi Arabia, and it is truly meaningful in the sense that the world has recognized the outstanding level of medical service and management competence of SNUH.
