YUHS charts path to excellence with focus on innovation, specialist care

Yonsei University Health System (YUHS), which has set about to leap to a top-tier general hospital, will push to improve its constitution to become a specialist-centered medical system.

It also plans to work out self-rescue measures to overcome the financial deterioration due to prolonged government-doctor conflicts.

YUHS' rate of return from medical treatment stood at “minus 0.5 percent” last year, and the situation will likely get even worse this year amid the prolonged confrontation between the government and the medical community, YUHS President & CEO Keum Ki-chang told a news conference on Tuesday.

“We expect to record a deficit of more than 120 billion won ($86 million) in the first half of this year alone when the healthcare turmoil began,” Keum said. “We are trying to improve our organizational health by participating in the pilot project for restructuring tertiary general hospitals, but financial losses will likely be inevitable.”

Keum acknowledged that it is difficult to prepare for the future of healthcare with medical revenues alone.

“We will grow by creating a diverse revenue structure in addition to medical treatment as a future development engine for innovative medicine and the introduction of an essential medical system,” he said.

YUHS plans to stabilize its management by diversifying its revenue structure, including the research and technology sector.

The medical institution has created a virtuous cycle by reinvesting some of its profits from patent technology transfer and the opening of Yonsei Biohealth Technology Holdings into medical research.

However, Keum said YUHS needs government support in the long term to resolve the management crisis. He cited as examples the fact that medical institutions are charged “household electricity rates” even though they are facilities for patient treatment and the relatively high 2.5 percent credit card fees to which hospitals are subject.

“Severance Hospital is subject to progressive electricity rates similar to those for household consumers, with electricity bills alone exceeding 22 billion won a year,” Keum said. “Modern medical devices consume significant amounts of electricity, making the electricity bill a heavy burden. The medical institution card fee is also high, almost 2.5 percent. The government should help us reduce the cost.”

Despite the management crisis, Keum emphasized that YUHS is speeding up its efforts to build a foundation for treating ultra-difficult diseases. In line with the government's project to support the restructuring of tertiary general hospitals, it is shifting its infrastructure to focus on severe diseases by, for instance, reducing the proportion of general and short-term beds in its hospitals.

For this purpose, it also has established a specialist-centered care system construction task force to speed up the transition to a specialist-centered care system by expanding the ratio of specialists and activating hospitalization specialists.

In addition, YUHS plans to advance precision medicine that can spearhead a paradigm shift in medicine. In May, for example, the Hanim Precision Medicine Clinic opened, with 22 specialists from 17 departments, including clinical genetics and pediatric neurology, participating in diagnosing, treating, and researching rare genetic diseases.

“Going forward, we will actively introduce innovative medicine and establish an essential medical system to set new standards for hospitals that treat patients with ultra-difficult diseases beyond upper-level general hospitals,” Keum said.

“We will lead global clinical research and preemptively introduce innovative medicine, such as new medical technologies, to reorganize the system completelyto ensure patients with ultra-acute and severe diseases can access treatment at Severance Hospital,” he added.

Keum also unveiled plans to build hardware to enhance medical research. The new medical school will be relocated from the sixth basement floor to the seventh floor of Yonsei University's Allen Hall site, increasing its floor space by more than 50 percent compared to the existing medical school.

Based on these plans, YUHS will significantly improve its research performance by fostering physician-scientist training, enhancing interdisciplinary research, and expanding research space, according to the YUHS president.

“A top-tier general hospital is where research and treatment of difficult diseases and diseases that are not easily treated are conducted,” Keum said. “We will build an infrastructure so that research can be conducted together, not just treatment.”