May. 16, 2007

 

Jackson Memorial opens international center

 

BY JOHN DORSCHNER

A day after the University of Miami medical school announced a major effort to expand its reach internationally, its long-standing partner, Jackson Memorial Hospital, trumpeted on Tuesday the grand opening of an international patient center -- an effort that has nothing to do with UM.
Hospital exec Shai Gold and UM spokesman Omar Montejo used the same words in describing the timing -- ''just a coincidence'' -- but both facilities are clearly trying to brand their own institutional names to foreigners as being the tops in quality healthcare.

''I don't think this can be viewed as a breakup or divorce,'' said Gold, Jackson's vice president of international medical services. ``This is a part of an evolution. The University of Miami has made a strategic decision, and at the same time change brings opportunity to Jackson.''

''We love it when Jackson opens a new program,'' UM Dean Pascal J. Goldschmidt said. ``This is very simple. Jackson is a hospital. We practice at Jackson. When a patient comes to the stroke center, our physicians take care of him.''

The underlying context is that UM, after decades of using Jackson as its teaching hospital, is now pursuing the purchase of Cedars Medical Center next door. UM doctors will continue to work at Jackson, but some Jackson officials fear that UM doctors might steer paying patients to Cedars while the poor will go to the tax-subsidized public hospital -- a fear that Goldschmidt said is unfounded.

All South Florida hospitals consider international patients to be lucrative, because they tend to pay considerably more than the negotiated rates of U.S. health plans.

The hospitals want these patients, said Gold, ``for the same reason Jesse James robbed banks: That's where the money is.''

The problem is that UM-Jackson has been seeing that type of money slide away. ''For 12 years there was a UM-Jackson international program that had diminishing returns,'' Gold said. ``From 2002 to 2005, the hospitals experienced a decline in international revenue.''

Jackson, burdened by many uninsured patients and poor patients who have low-paying Medicaid, has been looking for revenue opportunities, and the hospital's executives decided the international market needed to be emphasized.

''There is an assumption that a public hospital is a marketing weakness, but we believe the JMH brand is very, very strong,'' Gold said.

Jackson's marketing, aimed at the Caribbean basin, talks up its critical care services. ''Trauma and burn patients, neuroscience, stroke, complex cardiovascular intervention and surgery, that's what we do best as a hospital,'' said Gold, as distinct from the doctors who work there.

Jackson is talking to hospitals in the region about flying over their patients in need of critical care -- at least those who have the insurance to pay for the treatment.

On Tuesday, it opened the International Patient Reception Center, backed by a $1 million donation by BUPA, a British underwriter of health insurance for foreign travelers. The center has areas for registration, waiting, examination rooms and a business center.

UM, meanwhile, has a broader reach for its International Medicine Institute, training foreign doctors, opening overseas treatment centers and promoting foreign medical research -- as well as bringing in international patients to Miami.

Linda Quick, president of the South Florida Hospital and Healthcare Association, wonders whether either UM or Jackson ``will find enough patients to make it worth their while.''

She pointed out that several times in the past, local hospitals have tried joint marketing to attract international patients and the efforts have collapsed. The latest was the Miami Medical Alliance, which ended several years ago. 'The hospitals could not agree on who gets the patient. `Why should you get the urology case and I get the toenail removal case?' ''

Goldschmidt said he believes at some point UM and Jackson need to have a joint marketing effort, even if the med school purchases Cedars. ``It's going to be impossible in South America to explain we are separate. We have been affiliated for so long.''