At 8:00 a.m., the entire NTU Hospital was slowly waking up as medical staff waited for their turn to go to work lined up at the elevator entrances, and patients in the registration area were streaming toward the windows. In one corner of the hospital, however, the 8:00 a.m. hour has begun on time. Nurses guide people in uniform through the clinics in an orderly fashion.
This is the National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH) Health Management Center, the "hardest to get an appointment" in Taiwan. The warm color of the décor separates this place from the usual hospital departments, and the atmosphere is slightly different from the tense, solemn atmosphere of the hospital, which is much more cozy and comfortable.
The health check line at NTU has been around for years, leading the health check industry in Taiwan, constantly optimizing and streamlining the process, so that the health check has gone from being a "protracted battle" that originally took a week to a task that 90% of the clients can now complete in a single day.
In 2003, NTU Hospital's Health Management Center was officially established as the gatekeeper of health, promising to be a place where screening, treatment, and research go hand in hand, and today, 15 years later, we can tell by the number of appointments alone that NTU Health Center has really delivered - customers who didn't make an appointment a year ago would have been hard pressed to experience this top-of-the-line, 450-client-a-week healthcare itinerary in Taiwan.
The key to a health center is its people
What are the core factors that have made NTU's health center so popular with the Chinese? The key is our doctors," said center director Chiu Han-mo confidently. Unlike many health screening centers where the family doctor or internist is in charge of all the tests, at NTU Health Screening Center, all the tests are conducted by doctors of different disciplines.
"In addition to the 10 doctors who work full-time at the center, there are also many doctors who work in various departments at the same time," said Yang Shu-ting, the center's deputy manager, pointing out that every week, there are 40 or 50 doctors in various disciplines who come in and out of the center to perform checkups.
"The biggest advantage of having doctors who actually see patients is that they have higher disease acuity, so even if it's just a little bit of a minor lesion, it's not going to go away easily." Over the years, the center has screened and promptly treated more than 500 cancer patients.
Health screening and treatment Gastrointestinal endoscopy is the trump card of NTU's Health Screening Center
When it comes to the trump card of NTU's Health Screening Center, it's all about endoscopy.
In addition to checking for tumors, there is also a focus on whether there are polyps in the intestines, because many colorectal cancers are caused by the deterioration of polyps, and if you see suspicious polyps and remove them, you will greatly reduce the chances of developing cancer.
But to do an endoscopy, in fact, is not easy, including 3 days before the examination, we have to fast for certain foods, and after that we have to ***, anesthesia, the whole set of processes to operate down, need to spend a lot of manpower and resources. And if you find that there are polyps in the intestines that need to be removed, then you will have to run through these processes again for surgery.
"In fact, polyp removal is not considered a major operation, but endoscopy is very troublesome, if you can find the problem, deal with it immediately, is a way to improve efficiency." Most health screening centers don't dare to cut polyps in the screening process because the performers of gastrointestinal endoscopy are not necessarily doctors who specialize in this field. However, the doctors who perform gastrointestinal endoscopy at NTU Health Screening Center are all attending physicians in the department, and if polyps are found during the examination, they can be removed directly, saving the trouble of follow-up.
This way of drastically reducing medical and personnel costs has made gastrointestinal endoscopy the center's trump card, and the center is quite aware of the importance that customers place on gastrointestinal endoscopy, so every day there are as many as 3 lines of endoscopes running at the same time.
Health checkups are not as expensive as they are good
Nowadays, the tamest of all is the MRI and CT scanner, which NTU Health Checkup Center is naturally not missing, but unlike some health checkup centers that boast of "health checkups exclusive to customers," NTU Health Checkup Center's MRI and CT scanner instruments are used in conjunction with the hospital department.
"In fact, there is really no need to specialize in NMR*** vibration and tomography instruments in health check centers, because if these instruments are only for health check customers to use, then the other idle time, is a waste of medical resources," pointed out Yang Shu-ting. Chiu Hammond emphasized that the health check is not the more expensive, the more "exclusive use" the better, the focus is still on the health check behind the supporting physician resources.
In addition, if there are only good instruments, but no good quality control, it is not enough. The quality control at NTU is exemplary, and Chiu Han-mo pointed out that international standards require that colonoscopies reach over 95% of the cecum to be qualified, but NTU has achieved 99.6%, nearly 100%.
Customer-centered service
In fact, health check services can be done anywhere, but what is the point of going through all the trouble of grabbing a spot, and even having some of the people come from southern Taiwan to Taipei for a checkup?
"Because customers value the explanatory treatment during and after the health check process," the health check is only a means to an end, the end is to make the body healthy. The goal is to make the body healthy. How to solve customers' doubts and give them trustworthy treatments is the most important part of the health check.
"As soon as the client walks into the health check center, there will be a dedicated health examiner who will conduct group and individual health education, followed by a doctor who will discuss the client's condition individually and increase or decrease the number of items in the checkup depending on the client's needs."
The health examiner is the only person who can help the client with the health checkup. The exclusive health examiner will accompany the client throughout the whole process. So even if you are still awake after the endoscopy, you don't have to worry about missing out on any of the health check programs.
After completing the examination, if the health check center finds a problem that needs to be dealt with in a timely manner, and the customer will not return to the center to listen to the report in a short period of time, the center will promptly notify the customer by phone. And once the health check customer needs to use further medical behavior, the team from NTU Hospital will take over the follow-up task. This "one-stop-shopping at big hospitals" approach is also a key factor to make the health check customer's trust.
Research energy creates better healthcare resources
As an affiliated center of Taiwan's leading medical center, NTU Health Screening Center also values the importance of research. Chiu Han-mo pointed out that research and service go hand in hand to create better medical resources. Therefore, the center has several research labs that specialize in analyzing the physical data that these health check clients have agreed to give, promoting medical advances through research, and providing this data back to the public who use the medical resources.
Adjusting the way we book appointments High-quality healthcare is no longer out of sight, out of mind!
Chiu pointed out that people are paying more and more attention to health checkups, and even during the financial tsunami in 2008, the number of people taking health checkups didn't decrease, so health checkups have become a "necessity".
However, with such a good health check resource, there are only about 10,000 places available each year, and for the vast majority of people in Taiwan, it's a medical service that you can't see or eat. The first step is to make sure that you are able to get the best out of your computer, so that you can get the best out of your computer," he said.
So the NTU Health Center is now working on optimizing the enrollment process and adjusting the health check packages in the hope that those who really need it will be able to access the health check resources.
"In the future, the center can only book appointments six months in advance, and a certain number of slots will be released at the beginning of each month, all these ways in the hope that people will be able to get the services they need when they need them, in the shortest possible time." The new adjustments will officially go into effect the year after next, and we will be able to see the results of the NTU Health Screening Center's services in keeping with the times.