Ascension Healthcare Alliance (ASA) a USA non-profit hospital chain has signed a ‘document of public commitment’ with Dr. Devi Shetty in order to build and operate his proposed Cayman Islands hospital complex in East End. ASA will handle purchasing, facilities management and biomedical engineering services at the new healthcare facility, while Dr Shetty’s group will provide technical input and run the operation.

The agreement between ASA and Shetty was signed last Wednesday (4) at the Ritz Carlton. Present were delegates from the Government, Dr Shetty’s team and ASA.

Dr Anthony Tersigni, President and CEO of ASA, told the delegates that talks between ASA and Dr Shetty had been ongoing for two years exploring ways of using Shetty’s model to cut health care costs in the USA. “This partnership will not only lead to the provision of state-of-the-art healthcare facilities for Cayman,” he said, “but will also act as a pilot test case for lower cost health care provisions and determine if Dr Shetty’s model could reduce health care costs in America.”

Dr Tersigni also said, “This partnership will increase the Cayman hospital’s purchasing and negotiating power to keep costs down and will mean the Cayman hospital will not have to advertise for a single medical job as there was enough manpower across the two groups to staff the new facility, even though there is a significant worldwide shortage of trained medical personnel. However, there will be a push to begin training local people so that they can join what will eventually be a significant workforce as soon as is possible.”

ASA was created in Nov. 1999 from a union of the Daughters of Charity National Health System based in St. Louis, Mo., sponsored by four provinces of the Daughters of Charity, and the Sisters of St. Joseph Health System based in Ann Arbor, Mich., sponsored by the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Nazareth, Mich. (which since has joined with six other congregations to form the Congregation of St. Joseph). It is the largest Catholic healthcare system with 113,000 associates serving in more than 500 locations in 19 states and in the District of Columbia.

The ASA website says they have made a commitment to deliver on three promises:

• To create a sustainable, holistic healing environment that is safe, accessible, appropriate, adaptable and affordable
• To eliminate all preventable injuries and deaths
• To create 100% access to healthcare in communities that Ascension health serves

In Dr Shetty’s speech he again said he still had plans to build a “healthcare city” in Cayman, of some 2,000 beds.

“The first phase,” he said, “which is scheduled to break ground in August and on target to open early next year, will be 140 beds focusing on cardiac and cancer treatments. The goal is to offer local patients a way to receive tertiary treatment here in Cayman, which should result in a significant saving for the public purse, but also to create a medical tourism centre of excellence catering to sick people from the Caribbean and the United States.”

Shetty then spoke about his model and its success adding, “doctors at my hospital all receive a text message at noon everyday showing the previous day’s profit and loss, which helps them to manage costs. This same principle will be applied at the Cayman Health City.

“In a few years’ time when people think of the Cayman Islands, they will think of a medical centre of excellence!”

At present ASA manages more than 17,000 beds across 1,400 hospitals, and Dr Shetty’s Narayana group, has around 5,600 beds.