By Isabel Ovalle
Back in July 2012, Dr Edward Ogata moved to Qatar to take office as Chief Medical Officer (CMO) at Sidra Medical and Research Center. He was not new to such a position and had accepted the job because, even after a three-decade-long career, building a hospital from the ground was a challenge he had never taken up before.
He came to Sidra from the Ann and Robert Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, where he was CMO. He was also Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Crown Family Professor of Paediatrics and Professor of Paediatrics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago.
A specialist in neonatology, Ogata’s special interests include neonatal hypoglycaemia, infants of diabetic mothers, diabetes mellitus and carbohydrate metabolism, and he has been practicing medicine for more than 30 years.
“I had wondered the last several years what I was going to do next, understanding that I could have continued my job for quite a while,” he explained. At that point in his life and career, he had received a number of inquires, but he admitted: “This one I never expected.”
He travelled to Doha for the first time for the interview and gradually became more and more intrigued by the challenge. To satisfy his curiosity while he waited for an answer from Sidra, he read some books about Islam and Qatar.
He felt very excited and honoured when he received a call back and was very energised by this “rare opportunity to build something where there was no pre-existing organisation,” he explained. However, he knows his job is a “very large one.”
When he arrived in Doha to begin working, he took up the task of building the medical staff of Sidra, which will ultimately have 5,000 employees, including 500 physicians and 2,000 nurses. Six months later, recruitment is going well and the hospital will be fully equipped this year. The opening date has not yet been disclosed.
Located on the premises of Qatar Foundation, Sidra is a personal project of H H Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, Chairperson of Sidra and Qatar Foundation. She envisions a hospital and research centre which would cater to the needs of women and children. It has an endowment of $7.9bn, the largest in the world for a hospital.
On this basis, Sidra’s goal is to be considered among the top academic centres in the world. Accomplishing this objective is not easy, and the key to it is to attract the best possible staff, said Ogata.
“I focused a lot of my energies in the recruitment of the physician leaders, the chairs of the various specialty and subspecialty departments — the division heads — and a number of faculty physicians,” he added.
Sidra will have seven departments, each headed by a chairperson, to ensure a multidisciplinary approach to patients and their families. The workforce at Sidra will be multicultural — a mirror image of Doha’s population.
“We are recruiting from all over the world and our expectations are to bring the best possible group of physicians together to provide care and share the teaching mission,” said the CMO.
The institution also aims to be among the best women’s and children’s hospitals in the world, and part of its mission is to provide outstanding clinical care and top quality education, and do transformative research. “This will, I believe, set the example for healthcare in this region and beyond,” said Ogata.
In order to provide the best possible care, Sidra will have state-of-the-art equipment. In Ogata’s words, the hospital will be “high-tech and high touch, because a family’s experience is moulded not only by the way the physician treats the patient, but also by every step along the way, from parking your car, to how you’re greeted when you enter the clinic.”
The hospital building, which is still under construction, will be more than 3.5 million square feet in size.
In Qatar, healthcare services have improved very much in a short period. However, at Sidra, “we want to be absolutely sure that the service is the best possible, patient- and family-focused. We will be able to set the example by providing the highest level of family-centric care.”
“The building is magnificent in many ways and, as this calendar year progresses, all of the necessary equipment will be put into place in the structure,” the CMO said.
Ogata said the hospital will open only when “we are absolutely sure that we are able to meet all of the goals.” Recruitment is going well, and among the latest physicians hired is the chief of surgery, who arrived in Doha last Saturday, and will officially start work in April.
Weill Cornell Medical College in Qatar is Sidra’s academic partner, and students there will be getting their experience in obstetrics at Sidra. “Because of the number of patients and the size of the hospital, there will be a number of physicians which will serve as mentors,” said Ogata.
Sidra will also train medical students from other parts of the world who wish to train in paediatrics and obstetrics and gynaecology. In addition, there will be scholarship programmes for Qataris in various areas.
Ogata urged youngsters in Qatar to study medicine, because “it’s a fine profession and an honour to be able to serve people.”
Ogata referred to some of the health problems that currently affect women and children in Qatar, such as diabetes or obesity, which, he added, “are also rampant in the US and come with the ills of wealth.” These diseases have a major impact on women and their offspring. Another health issue for children in Qatar, which Ogata identified as a major concern of his, is trauma related to automobile accidents.The Peninsula
• Sidra’s informatics system, called Patient Electronically Accessible Record for Life (PEARL), will ensure that patients and the healthcare professionals involved in their treatment will have instant access to accurate information at the touch of a button.
• Every Sidra patient will have an identity tag, which will be used to track patients around the hospital, ensuring that they are safe, comfortable and enjoy personalised care. Sidra’s informatics system will resolve this through innovative technology that reads the pattern of blood vessels in the patient’s hands. Biometric technology, such as vein identity, offers a high level of accuracy and is particularly valuable in Qatar, where date of birth is not traditionally used for identification purposes and many universally common names exist.
• Sidra’s processes will be 100 percent paper-free. Everything, from patients’ records to prescriptions and pharmacy stock levels, will be captured, stored and transferred electronically. All healthcare professionals will be equipped with mobile devices such as iPad minis and iPhones.
• The design is based on creating indoor healing gardens within three large atria that separate four patient towers. The atria are enclosed by sail-like structures based on a nautical theme. The atria will provide a healing environment that soothes human senses.
• Three large leaf-like canopies grace the three entrances at the ground floor drop-off lane, which also connects to the underground parking through helical ramps. Three entrances at the basement (also referred to as mall level) replicate the upper entry points and serves as a direct access from the underground visitor parking to the main entrance to the hospital building as well as outpatient clinic.
• The outpatient clinic building (OPC) has a warmer stone cladding and has a concave façade. It faces away from the hospital entrance, expressing its different function.
