DOHA: Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) is piloting an advanced model acute short-term treatment for recovery from surgery at Hamad General Hospital (HGH).
A medical team led by Dr Abdullah Al Ansari, Deputy Chief of Medical, Academic and Research Affairs for Surgical Services at HMC is piloting the ‘acute care surgery’ at HGH, as a progressive approach to specialization and consultant-based management care for patients.
A multi-disciplinary team of surgeons and clinical experts will provide emergency acute surgical care to patients and make early prognosis decisions on each case received. The experts will also map out treatment plans and refer patients to operating theaters or inpatient wards for further treatment.
Dr Al Ansari said, “This initiative comes as part of HMC’s plan to establish separate facilities for various surgical subspeciality services. We began with urology, breast, gastrointestinal and endocrine surgeries, in addition to organ transplants. This acute care surgery service is the first of its kind in the region. It is being offered in the UK, the United States and Australia.”
According to him the potential benefits of this concentrated and focused approach to acute surgical care includes greater surveillance by the patient’s medical team from the moment they are admitted through to their discharge. “A great advantage of this new service is that the multi-disciplinary team of surgeons is available around-the-clock, thus allowing patient immediate access to care,” said Dr Al Ansari.
“The acute care surgery section is a golden ring in the chain of HMC’s surgical service development project, which started at various surgical sub-speciality services since I have been appointed Chairman of Surgery in 2009. We first started with urology surgery where we implemented a successful development project, and then proceeded to other surgery sections; firmly establishing advanced surgical sub-speciality services, including spine, breast, colon, liver, endocrine and trauma surgeries, in addition to organ transplants and robotic surgeries,” stated Dr Al Ansari. He also said that the acute care surgery program has been running successfully for more than one year now at HGH, thus encouraging the official inauguration of the program.
While, according to Dr Salah Gehani, Consultant Surgeon and Head of General Surgery Training at HGH said the new program will help improve the quality of training provided to physicians on duty.
The medical team of acute care surgery can also decide if a patient needs an urgent surgery or not. Those patients who do not need surgery will be discharged from the hospital to free up bed space. These patients will be followed up at Outpatient Department.
The Peninsula
