Shenzhen has shown to the world its characteristic as a modern city for the last 40 years, and the hospital construction has been developed rapidly in Shenzhen as well. The columnist of Zhu Yi Tai Rong Media did an interviewed with Wang Cheng to talk about the "Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Hospital Construction Project". Wang Cheng is the Secretary of Party Committee and Vice President of Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center (The Fourth People’s Hospital of Shenzhen), located at No.1 Jinniu West Road, Pingshan District, Shenzhen.

As the only general public hospital that is operated through Sino-German cooperation in China, this distinctiveness makes the mode of operation and management of the hospital full of uniqueness. We arrived at Wang Cheng's office as promised and listened to him talking about the story of Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center.

Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center (The Fourth People’s Hospital of Shenzhen)

Sino-German Joint and Cooperative Hospital in Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center (hereinafter referred to as "Samii International Medical Center") is one of the key cooperation projects between two sister cities, Shenzhen, China and Hannover, Germany. On May, 2015, with the support of the local government, the former Shenzhen Public Hospital Management Center and the Hannover International Medical Innovation Company signed an agreement in Shenzhen in which they agreed to cooperate in running a hospital. The hospital is named after Prof. Majid Samiii and also called the Fourth People’s Hospital of Shenzhen as it is also a public hospital. It was ready for soft opening on December 18th, 2017 and was officially open on November 11th, 2020.

According to Wang Cheng, the Samii International Medical Center is funded by the local government and operated through Sino-German cooperation. To set up such a hospital, they have to face many difficulties, such as cultural and language differences, he said optimistically, "We are working hard to turn the difficulties into advantages, to build the bridge for cooperation, to explore the optimal operation and management model, and to be the pioneer in Sino-foreign cooperation in running a hospital." The Samii International Medical Center is the only public hospital in China with a foreigner as its president, while Wang Cheng serves as the hospital's Secretary of Party Committee, Legal Representative and Vice President. This kind of organizational structure is one of the features of this hospital.

Prof. Samii, the German partner of Samii International Medical Center, is the President of the International Neuroscience Institute (INI) at Otto von Guericke University, the President of the China INI at Capital University in Beijing, and the Honorary President of the World Federation of Neurosurgical Societies (WFNS). Prof. Samii’s specialty in neurosurgery has determined the development of the Samii International Medical Center. Unlike other general public hospitals, neurosurgery will be the big focus of this hospital. Wang Cheng noted that to make a specialty strong, while developing other specialties, which could guarantee patients’ safety to the most and is also in line with the hospital's mission-all for the patient.

As an international hospital, what foreign advanced management concepts or technologies have been introduced to the hospital? According to Wang Cheng, the first thing was the human resources management system, the hospital followed the foreign practice of "Salary is determined by posts, posts are set up according to needs, while recruitment is made according to posts". At the beginning, it was very hard for the hospital to recruit talents, he said humorously, "At that time, the hospital was still under construction, we had no door number, no official seal, no bank account. People even thought we were a pyramid scheme organization." Now the hospital has become bigger and bigger with more than a thousand employees. The second thing was the German craftsmanship spirit of "rigor, passing tradition and responsibility", which had been fully reflected in the process of our cooperation.

Wang Cheng

Secretary of Party Committee, Legal Representative and Vice President of Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center (The Fourth People's Hospital of Shenzhen)

The "OK" outlook is both stylish and dignified, like an "alien" standing on the green field

The Samii International Medical Center is a public hospital affiliated to the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission. Located on Jinniu West Road, Pingshan District, Shenzhen in 2012, the hospital was built according to the standard of a Grade III general hospital and formerly was known as Shenzhen Julong Hospital with an area of 68,000 square meters. The hospital covered a floor area of 137,000 square meters during its first phase construction and was planned to open 600 beds.

Talking about the hospital construction, Wang Cheng said with emotion, "The empty field was full of dirt, surrounded only by simple fences. As the head of this hospital, I drove to see this place, when I lifted the fence at the corner, I heard many stray dogs barking around." He said due to the slow development of the eastern part of Shenzhen, it was difficult for them to participate in the whole process at the beginning of the hospital construction, and there were still some imperfections, but the overall design of this hospital was very beautiful, and it won "The Fourth Most Beautiful Hospital in China" award in 2021.

The sky garden of the hospital

The Samii International Medical Center is adjacent to Maluan Mountain, and is surrounded by the Pingshan River. The surrounding natural scenery is very beautiful. With a sky garden where birds are singing and flowers are blooming, and a lively fish pond, the hospital presents different outlooks as the season changes. There is no pollution from modern industrial enterprises around the hospital, thus the air quality is quite good as well, with rich negative oxygen ions, which is good for the physical and mental health of patients.

The hospital has a unique and modern outlook with silver gray facade. The hospital has good lighting and ventilation conditions and fine interior design. The hospital is equipped with a coffee house, self-service coffee machine and 24-hour convenience store. A faint aroma of coffee in the hospital can effectively soothe patients. The hospital signage is bilingual, clear and accurate, with complete types of hanging signs, standing signs and ground guidance. The hospital is also designed with three sky gardens with WiFi, drinks, light music and greenery, and is accessible to wheelchair-bound patients as well. This kind of design makes the hospital much safer and more comfortable.

The hospital courtyard area is designed with flower boxes as separation, and the focus is planned for pedestrian-vehicle separation to ensure the safety of pedestrians in the hospital. The reasonable lane planning also allows vehicles to enter the underground parking lot quickly, and the space utilization on the two underground levels is reasonable, which offers plenty of parking spaces for patients and staff.

Coffee machines can be found everywhere in the hospital

In terms of medical equipment, the Samii International Medical Center has built a 1,500-square-meter hybrid operation room containing machines for intraoperative DSA, intraoperative 3.0T MRI, surgical navigation and ventriculoscopy, high-end microscopes, surgical robots and other high-end instruments. Patients can undergo MRI review during surgery, which helps to improve the quality and efficiency of surgery, and to win more time for saving patients. This is another reflection of our hospital’s mission of all for the patients.

Hybrid operation room

Regarding to the restroom, besides taking into account of the number, ventilation and lighting conditions, privacy, safety(anti-slip design) of men's and women's restrooms, the hospital has also innovated to set up a third restroom. In terms of quantity, there are more restrooms for women than for men.

What is the third restroom? Wang Cheng explained that the third restroom is a restroom specially set up for patients with limited mobility or being accompanied by their relatives (especially of the opposite sex) because they cannot go to the restroom alone. The third restroom is designed to solve the problem for some special patients (family members of opposite sexes going out together and one of them cannot take care of him/herself). In hospitals, it is not uncommon that daughters come with fathers or sons with mothers, etc. The third restroom can help patients like the above-mentioned groups and the handicapped to solve the problem of unable to go to the toilet alone.

According to Wang Cheng, the underground part of the hospital is a two-story basement, and the above-ground part consists of outpatient building, medical technology building, inpatient building, administrative support building, sewage treatment station, liquid oxygen station, etc. The hospital building as a whole is in the shape of "OK", which symbolizes a good meaning of everything will be okay to the government, patients and employees.

The second phase of construction is planned for VIP patients, and will build a "Brain" landmark

From the stand table of the Samii International Medical Center that is placed at the entrance of the hospital, we can see that the hospital has a global view for sustainable development. It has reserved plenty of space for future expansion.

Wang Cheng said that the hospital construction under second phase will plan to open 400 beds to make up for the lack of the first phase of construction; and the biggest concern is still the humanistic care for patients and medical staff, followed by the improvement of hospital infrastructures and the construction of the landmark. It is mainly reflected in the following aspects:

First, to provide VIP medical services to meet the needs of different types of patients for consultation.

Second, to increase the number of beds to further improve the strength in neurological specialty.

Third, to expand the area of academic lecture halls and develop the strength of scientific research and teaching.

Fourth, to plan the Brain Museum to highlight its characteristic as a neurological hospital and to create a landmark in Pingshan.

Fifth, to focus on the construction of “smart” parking lot, to create a 3D parking garage, so that to realize the smart parting solution.

Sixth, to develop 5G+ medical services and provide virtual+reality consultation and treatment services.

Seventh, to promote the smart logistics development in the hospital.

Eighth, to plan a parking apron and make preparation for air medical services, and develop other businesses and sightseeing business at the same time.

There are three INIs (International Institute of Neuroscience) in the world, respectively located in Hanover, Germany, Tehran, Iran and Beijing, China. All of them are designed in the shape of a human brain according to Prof. Samii's idea, which is both unique and original. Meanwhile, the fourth building in the shape of a human brain will be located in the second phase of the construction of the Samii International Medical Center. This internationally known building, on one hand highlights the hospital's strong strength in neurosurgery, and on the other hand, creates a landmark in eastern part of Shenzhen.

Wang Cheng introduced in detail how they designed the second phase construction of the hospital so as to make preparation for VIP medical services. He said that this is the way for the hospital to develop sustainably and gradually get rid of its dependence on government investment. "I think providing VIP medical services does not make the hospital less like a public hospital, but is to meet the needs of patients at different consumption levels. It is also our innovation in exploring a new way to run a Sino-foreign joint venture hospital." He said.

According to Wang Cheng, the VIP medical service should at least have three characteristics: first, near error-free medical service; second, hotel-style service with complete hardware facilities, warm and comfortable environment; and third, the medical treatment with anesthesia and intervention available, such as painless delivery and painless tooth extraction.

He described the advantages of VIP medical service with an example of a woman giving birth. Women waiting for delivery will have many physiological needs, and the single room service can provide a comfortable environment for them, especially it is convenient for their loved ones when come to the hospital for caring them or visiting. And the length of hospital stay is not a long period, so generally specking, the costs are affordable for a family.

Restart the hospital to fight against the pandemic

Scientific prevention and control to achieve zero infection

Accordingly to the anti Covid-19 policy of the Shenzhen Municipal Health Commission, the Samii International Medical Center became the only designated medical unit for the isolation and observation of Covid-19 patients who have discharged from other hospitals in Shenzhen on February 22, 2020. All Covid-19 patients discharged from hospitals would be transferred to the Samii International Medical Center for another 14 days isolation and observation, and would only be released when the patients’ all tests are normal.

The hospital had emptied the room for the inpatients and provided 188 single rooms with individual restrooms in 9 wards for those Covid-19 patients. They implemented the ward to ward management model. A medical and nursing team consisting of doctors, nurses and psychologists would make the rounds of wards every day, paying high attention to the underlying diseases and psychological and mental states of all patients under isolation, and dealing with emergencies in a timely manner. In addition, the hospital provided a bilingual handbook, called "Notice of Releasing from Isolation", for the use of domestic and foreign patients.

Wang Cheng said, there are many foreign patients who speck English for communication, so he will pay more attention to their daily activities and eating habits, for example, whether the vegetarians can eat eggs or drink milks. All these “tailor-made” care for patients won a lot of praises from patients. The hospital also payed special attention to the youngsters. The nurses would organize a role-play day, where the nurses and doctors would play the roles as "mothers" and "fathers", wearing daily clothes to have fun with the kids and help to put them into beds.

In addition, the hospital also employed professionals to provide psychological support to patients so as to get to know each patient's mental and physical conditions. It also undertook the responsibility for the hospital's electrical safety, fire safety, the smooth going of large-scale nucleic acid testing, etc. Even though it was facing a huge workload, Wang Cheng said, "the Samii International Medical Center is a ‘dynamic force’ in fighting the pandemic in Shenzhen, and we have achieved zero infection among the Covid-19 patients who are under isolation and observation in our hospital, and every employee of our hospital is really proud of that." As a hospital administrator, Wang Cheng really did a great job in fighting the pandemic together with all the employees in the Samii International Medical Center.

On May 25, 2021, there was a sudden outbreak of Covid-19 cases in Guangdong Province. In the face of an overwhelming trend of Covid-19 outbreak in Shenzhen, although the hospital was under great pressure to achieve public vaccination program, Wang Cheng, Secretary of Party Committee and Vice President of the hospital, still responded quickly and set up a medical team for the task of urgent nucleic acid test. It consisted of more than 30 doctors, nurses and security personnel, with Director Chen Min as the commander-in-chief and Dr. Wang Xinyuan as the team leader.

Mass testing and public Covid-19 vaccination program were carried out in an orderly manner

The hospital administrators also attached great importance to the work of fighting the pandemic. Although Prof. Ethan Kholdebarin, Medical Director, was far from China due to the pandemic, he still cared about the employees and told them to take good care of themselves and thanked them for their contribution in the battle of fighting the pandemic. At the same time, Prof. Ethan Kholdebarin also maintained close contact with Secretary Wang Cheng, and often gave advice and suggestions to him through online meeting. Wang Cheng, Secretary of the Party Committee and Vice President of the hospital, took the lead in person and mobilized all the medical staff in the hospital to do their best to achieve mass testing.

In Shenzhen in late May, the outdoor temperature had already soared above 30 degree Celsius, and a yellow high temperature warning sign had been issued for several days. To face the heavy task of mass testing in the very short period of time, all employees responded quickly once they received the assignment and fully obeyed the order. It was their responsibility to fight against the pandemic for the people. After going through the first outbreak of Covid-19 in 2020, the medical team members at this time were more like battle-hardened warriors and would eventually win this battle!

At present, the mass testing and Covid-19 vaccination program are under way in the Shenzhen Samii International Medical Center (The Fourth People’s Hospital of Shenzhen). The hospital has overcome difficulties such as lack of manpower and a vaccine surge, and has continuously enhanced its capacity in responding the outbreak of Covid-19. All the medical staff will try their best to stick to their posts to build a strong line of defense for the people.

This article is forwarded from the official WeChat account筑醫(yī)臺資訊(zhuyitai.com).