Dear Friends and Colleagues,

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As I complete my first year as chief executive officer of Mountain View Health Care, I would like to take a few moments to thank you for all you have done during these unprecedented times facing us during the global pandemic and to share my thoughts on the “state of the system." All of us at Mountain View Health Care are committed to meeting the healthcare needs of our growing population throughout the nation of Healthlandia. Our goal is to provide compassionate care with the finest technology and services available today. But we are not just focused on today. In the years ahead, delivering high-quality care as efficiently as possible will become even more important. Healthcare providers around the world are faced with increasing challenges like aging and migrating populations, increasing costs, the development of new and exciting treatments for disease, retention and shortages of skilled caregivers, the infusion of technology to aid caregivers, enable telehealth / remote care, and provide greater transparency to patients and families. This very fluid healthcare environment offers challenges and opportunities unlike any we have ever seen. The doctors, nurses, and hospitals who “break the code” on many of them will be able to provide a completely different experience and outcome to their patients. That is my goal for Mountain View Health Care.

 

Patient Centricity – Do the Right Things Right

The ultimate objective for any healthcare provider is delivering a better patient outcome at a lower comparative cost. Healthcare providers strive to provide the best outcomes compared to their patient expectations. They also desire to provide the best patient experience. Throughout the entire Mountain View system, we believe that no detail is too small to spoil a patient’s perception of your care. We all need to start “looking under the bed” in the new medical environment. Ultimately, the patient experience is determined by our caregivers – all of our caregivers, not just doctors and nurses. Receptionists, housekeeping, greeters, administrative staffers – they all impact the patient experience. They need to be motivated and engaged. Patient experience is top-of-mind in everything they do. It is critical that we never forget this. As more and more patients come to us for treatment, educated patients and their families will look at a hospital’s quality and safety data. The move driven by the Ministry of Health to focus on patient satisfaction is important, but it will not make or break our institutions. The real motivation for change needs to come from the heart. Not everything can be measured by Key Performance Indicators or costs or other financial metrics. We can’t forget why we became doctors, nurses, and administrators. In the final analysis, we work for a better patient experience and better outcomes because it’s the right thing to do.

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Every member of our staff at Mountain View Health Care strives to combine absolute professionalism with a human touch. Their success can be seen in the praise they get in the thousands of cards sent to us by patients each year, or in the many positive comments that can be found on the Website. From pediatric play nurses who spend time with our youngest patients at MV Arkala Children’s Hospital, to physiotherapists who care for the elderly at Mountain View Kingdom, each one of us puts our patients at the centre of everything we do. This year, we will form teams of surgeons, specialists, nurses, and therapists. These teams will be charged with identifying areas for improvement, developing new innovative technologies, processes and practices, and implementing those ideas across all MVHC facilities. In particular, they will focus on improving patient safety and patient outcomes, reducing Hospital Acquired Infection rates, reducing patient length of stay and readmission rates, simplifying and improving admission processes, and evaluating new surgical and other medical technologies. Our belief is that the old expression, “Physician, heal thyself” can be applied to the hospitals themselves.

 

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Patient Safety

Mountain View Health Care is particularly concerned about protecting the safety of our patients throughout their treatment at all of our facilities. In 2016, a pilot Patient Safety Committee (PSC) was created at Emirates Metro Hospital. It proved to be highly successful. As a result, two years ago the rest of Mountain View’s hospitals and clinics instituted similar location-specific Patient Safety Committees and a system-wide PSC was initiated. These committees have implemented policies and procedures for the protection of patients and staff members and for the submission of patient and staff safety data back to the PSCs. The PSC staffs developed dashboards for reporting patient safety data from all hospitals and in aggregate for the Healthlandian Ministry of Health. The goal is to take this to the next level by automating the process. The Mountain View Electronic Safety Reporting system, safERSystem™, will be implemented this year. We anticipate that this system will receive more than 1,000 data submissions per month for the purpose of developing improvements in clinical processes to reduce patient harm and for protection of data.

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The error-prevention component of Mountain View’s Balanced Scorecard goal for Healing without Harm for next year is a major focus for this initiative. Recently we established a system-level true baseline for events of harm. That true baseline was calculated as 2.09 Serious Safety Events per 10,000 patient equivalent days. Actual performance at the end of Fiscal Year was 1.73 Serious Safety Events per 10,000 patient equivalent days. Our target by the year after next is 1.5 Serious Safety Events per 10,000 patient equivalent days.

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Creating Our Centres of Excellence: Focus on Cardiac, Renal, Innovative Surgery, Orthopedics, Spine and Bariatric Treatment

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Mountain View Health Care provides treatments to patients for all manner of diseases and conditions, but at the top of the list are Cardiovascular Care, Renal Care, Innovative Surgery, Sports Medicine and Orthopedics, Spine and Brain Trauma, and Gastroenterology and Bariatric Surgery. We will focus on these areas through the Centres of Excellence we have opened over the last two years. While the concept behind these Centres of Excellence predate my role as CEO, I clearly see the incredible results and impact that they are having for our patients. In the coming months, we will be making some exciting announcements about all six of these centres. Our goal is to be Healthlandia’s leading provider in those disciplines.

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Our continued focus on these diseases and conditions align fully with their role as the leading causes of death in Healthlandia and, in fact, the rest of CEMA:

 

1. Ischaemic heart diseases

2. Cerebrovascular diseases

3. Lung cancer

4. Chronic lower respiratory diseases

5. Accidents

 

Very few families in Healthlandia have not experienced the tragedy of heart disease. I am not satisfied for Mountain View to merely provide high quality treatment to cardiac patients. That is just a starting point. We plan to expand the Mountain View Buda Cardiovascular Care Centre. Our goal is simple. We want to become the premier cardiovascular disease research facility in the world. Over the next few months, we will be making exciting announcements about the details of this project, but the objective is clear and simple - the elimination of heart disease.

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Growth and Expansion

In addition to the major initiatives I have outlined, we at Mountain View Health Care continue to focus on growth. Our strategy will not change. Our goal for growth is to increase the number of patients we see per year by a minimum of 10% with a stretch goal of 20% while only increasing the number of beds in our existing hospitals by 5% over the next 2 years. Our 10-year goal is to double the number of patients seen and increase our number of beds by 50% through the acquisition of additional hospitals. To accomplish this, we will build or acquire at least three small to medium hospitals. Beyond hospital space, we will build or acquire additional clinic facilities in specific locations. Last year, we added MV Gulf Hospital, our first facility outside of Healthlandia. MV Gulf Hospital has provided us with some unique integration and standardization challenges. We are confident that we will correct those issues and, in doing so, help to develop new standards and procedures that can be implemented across all of Mountain View Health Care’s hospitals, clinics, and other facilities. In addition to our acquisition strategy, we will increase the number of patients we serve, and improve access to care via digital channels, remote patient monitoring, and telemedicine (which has become increasingly important during the pandemic).

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Strong Track Record in Financial Management

With an annual turnover of around €1.59 billion, Mountain View Health Care has been experiencing challenging financial times for the past few years. We have seen fluctuations in revenue and costs and a steady decline in margins. We are looking to address these trends regarding declining revenue and margins. We are committed to investing in our infrastructure to ensure continual provision of the highest quality services and have recently completed one of the country’s largest capital investment schemes in excess of €904m. This investment included the unveiling of Healthlandia’s very first Innovative Surgery Centre of Excellence dedicated to all forms of new, innovative, and minimally-invasive surgery techniques. Our owners, River City Equity Partners, have high expectations for our financial performance. They rely on the leadership and staff of MVHC to improve our financial results both by growing revenues and by achieving cost reductions through process improvements. To accomplish these goals, we will have the full support of our Board of Directors and the Ministry of Health, including significant funds for investment.

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I would like to express my heartfelt appreciation to the Board of Directors for their support of our efforts to make Mountain View Health Care the best hospital system in Healthlandia. My utmost respect and gratitude goes to our caregivers; the doctors, nurses, pharmacists, lab technicians, and all of our other associates. Without their efforts, Mountain View Health Care could not, and would not succeed. Finally, my thanks to our patients and their families for continuing to place their trust in us. It is our solemn obligation to continue to meet that trust by providing you and your families with the finest healthcare in the world.

 

C. Mendez, MD

Chief Executive Officer

Mountain View Health Care