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All the planned healthcare institutes for neuroscience, cancer, cardiovascular and metabolism at the Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) are expected to be fully functional within the next two years, HMC’s Faculty and Academic Affairs Scientific chief Edward Hillhouse disclosed yesterday.
Initially, they will operate as “virtual healthcare institutes” as there are no immediate plans to build specific structures to house them separately or together, according to the official.
The institutes are being envisaged as hubs of clinical, educational and research activity.
Speaking on the sidelines of the concluding session of the Association of Academic Health Centers International’s first Middle East and North Africa Regional Meeting, Hillhouse said: “These institutes are being established as virtual institutes because we have no plans to build a structure to house them in the immediate sense. For instance, the cardiovascular institute will be partly housed within the Heart Hospital.”
However, he added that the long-term plan was to incorporate all the institutes under one roof as the HMC built more new hospitals.
“These specialised virtual institutes will serve as hubs of clinical, educational and research activity which are all designed to deliver a seamless package of care for our patients. This involves clinical and translational (bench to bedside) research which will make real impacts on the delivery of healthcare to patients. The institutes will also look at innovative solutions for the healthcare challenges facing Qatar,” Hillhouse pointed out.
The institutes, developed in tandem with the National Health Strategy, will underpin the state-of-the-art Translational Research Institute, which is scheduled to open in 2015.
Hillhouse pointed out that the research emphasis had also involved reaching out to world-class international partners focusing on areas, including personalised medicine, women’s health, obesity and diabetes.
“Our plan is to bring these institutes closer to patients and ensure that they receive all the needed care in one stop and that is by bringing all the scientists that will be working in those institutes together in a building.”
He said the neuroscience and cancer institutes were already functional and cardiovascular and metabolic institutes, with focus on diabetes care and management, would be established soon.
“We have already established the cancer institute, which is being referred to as the National Centre for Cancer Care and Research (NCCCR), at the Rumailah complex and the neuroscience institute has partially begun operations.”
He explained that the neuroscience institute would focus on three areas that are highly relevant to the health of the community in Qatar, which are epilepsy, brain injury - with emphasis first on stroke and later traumatic brain injury - and immune disorder, especially in relation to women who suffer post-partum (post-delivery) health problems.
About 2,000 cases of epilepsy are treated yearly at HMC and the incidence of the condition is expected to increase significantly in the next 20 to 30 years, a senior HMC consultant neurologist, Dr Boulenouar Mesraoua, said at an earlier event.
“Our aim is to find new ways of managing these health issues as we will employ a multi-disciplinary approach, thus bringing together doctors, nurses, therapists and lab technicians with the main goal of improving patient care,” the official maintained adding that each institute also has a steering committee.
He said that an internationally-renowned cancer specialist from Europe had been appointed as the director of the NCCCR and that the HMC was in the final stage of appointing a director for the neuroscience institute as two candidates from north America are being considered for the post.
Initiative to improve patient care standards
Over the next five years, the Hamad Medical Corporation and its six partner organisations will develop a nationwide Academic Health System (AHS) , which will be the first-of-its-kind centre in the Middle East and North Africa region, senior HMC officials said yesterday. The AHS is expected to improve standards of patient care, help train the next generation of clinical and scientific leaders in Qatar and support world-class research. The AHS partnership, launched in August 2011, is already seeing scientists and clinicians working on targeted research projects relating to the challenges facing Qatar’s growing population.