Curaçao Medical Center – Providing the Best Healthcare

On November 15^th, 2019, after a series of obstacles and delays, doors finally opened to the long-awaited new Curacao Medical Center. Just one day before, 1,200 hospital employees and 150 patients packed up and moved from the 163-year-old St. Elisabeth Hospital into the brand-new building. It was a massive operation that went off without a hitch, thanks to extensive planning and the help of a team from Erasmus Medical University in Rotterdam. The new facility is just a stone’s throw away from the old one but that’s where the similarities end. Bright and airy with floor to ceiling windows overlooking landscaped gardens, it doesn’t feel like a hospital. People are smiling and there are sounds of laughter as uniformed volunteers help patients and visitors find their way through the fresh new space. 

Now that services are in full swing, I sat down with Germaine Gibbs, Head of Communications at the center, to talk about healthcare, change, and the challenges of the coronavirus (COVID-19). Germaine explained that the new hospital is more than just a new building. The entire ethos has been altered. “One of the biggest changes is the way we view the people who use the center. We see them as guests, not just patients”, she tells me, and feedback so far has been excellent. There are still areas for improvement, such as signage and routing, however management, staff, and patients are all reporting positive experiences. 

A vital component has been the technological improvements that advance the care offered and allow healthcare professionals to deliver more efficient service. One example is the novel way that pathology services are carried out. The center now outsources nearly all its testing to an offsite lab run by Analytisch Diagnostisch Centrum NV (ADC). Samples are delivered in seconds via a pressurized vacuum tube running from the medical center to the lab, speeding up testing and results. The hospital has also adopted the HIX (Healthcare Information Exchange) medical information management system which eliminates the need for medical charts, handwritten doctor referral letters and all the associated delays. HIX records everything and information is easily accessible to all medical staff. It allows for quicker diagnoses, better treatment and ultimately a shorter recovery time. This is one of the reasons why the medical center has approximately the same number of beds as the old hospital. With better and more effective care, patients should recover faster and spend less time in the hospital. 

A case in point is the pediatric wing which has a current occupancy rate of just 16%. For the unit to operate at optimum efficiency, it would ideally have more patients but hospital admissions for children have been steadily dropping for several years, a result of better healthcare, nutrition, and vaccinations. As healthcare improves, more services can be delivered on an outpatient basis and when hospital stays are necessary, they are generally shorter. Another change that facilitates this is the relocation of consultants and specialists into the hospital building from practices that were previously spread out around the city. Centralizing care to one location reduces delays and makes it easier for patients to access these services. However, for children who do need to be in the hospital, the medical center is making sure that it’s a more cheerful place to be, both for the kids themselves and their families. A Ronald McDonald house will soon open onsite, supporting the parents of sick children and helping them to stay together with their child for the duration of their hospital treatment. 

Another positive initiative at the center is a volunteer program that was initially meant to last only for the first few months after opening. More than one hundred members of the public signed up to assist patients and visitors in finding their way around the new hospital. The program has been enormously successful with outstanding feedback from staff, patients and the volunteers themselves. As a result, a decision was taken to make it a permanent thing. Volunteers can log on to a system where they submit their availability and are assigned shifts. This approach aligns with a policy of inclusivity and autonomy across the hospital. Each employee has the opportunity to contribute to the operation of the center at quarterly town hall meetings where attendance is mandatory, and suggestions or comments are encouraged. After each meeting, all content is published on the intranet with the hospital currently updating internal systems to allow employees greater input into decision-making processes. 

Communication and collaboration are at the heart of the Medical Center’s plans to deal with the coronavirus. An ‘outbreak’ team made up of microbiologists, infectologists and a pulmonologist are meeting regularly along with a specialist ‘calamity’ team made up of 30 healthcare professionals who have been trained in how to treat and contain the virus. The hospital has had plans in place for several months and these are being updated on a daily basis in response to developments locally and around the world. “We have clear protocols for the moment that a coronavirus patient walks through the door,” she explains, “and we have back up plans and systems in operation for all manner of scenarios that might occur”. 

Germaine sees the hospital as a resource that belongs to the community and believes, in time, it will provide services for residents of other islands in the region. In the past, some Curaçao residents have chosen to travel abroad to access healthcare services in other countries, however, this should no longer be necessary. It won’t take long for the reputation of the new center to spread and we may soon see patients traveling here from all over the Dutch Caribbean to access a standard of care superior to that available anywhere else in the region. The management team is already working on attaining international healthcare accreditation which will help to promote the hospital as a center of excellence. 

There are still other developments planned, such as the addition of an onsite convenience store and some cosmetic improvements. Construction work and small repairs are ongoing, but the finish line is in sight. “The devil is in the detail”, Germaine says and as with any new building, there are minor issues that are insignificant on their own but challenging in their aggregate. All of these are expected to be ironed out by the end of the year allowing the center to focus on what’s important, providing the very best healthcare to the people of Curaçao. 

Writer: Úna Jansen