Private hospital operator Sheehan Medical has awarded Siemens Healthcare an €8.5m contract to install financing and healthcare technology at the new €90m Cork Medical Centre.
The new hospital will open in Cork in September and will be the first new private hospital facility to open in the city for 30 years.
The contract includes financing for all the hospital’s equipment from Siemens Financial Services, the company’s first deal in Ireland. About half of the €7m is for technology from Siemens Healthcare, including a suite of state-of-the-art equipment, including its flagship angiography, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), computed tomography (CT), X-ray and ultrasound equipment.
Owned by the Sheehan Medical, the Cork Medical Centre will be a technology-driven hospital that will lead the field with the newest and most promising interventions for stroke, brain tumours, back pain and other sites of chronic pain.
Siemens Healthcare will provide a suite of equipment that also includes the Artis zee bi-plane flat panel detector, a revolutionary new system for advanced imaging in interventional radiology, cardiology and neuroradiology investigations.
Siemens Enterprise Communications will provide a turnkey Information and Communications Healthcare Network focused on productivity, security and mobility; delivering complete access to clinical information and patient workflows from any device, regardless of location.
Equipment by Siemens
Siemens is also delivering state-of-the-art equipment in MRI and CT. The Siemens’ Magnetom Essenza MRI system, which due to its 1.5T field strength, will allow CMC to deliver superior image quality and offer greater diagnostic confidence to support a complete range of clinical applications, including neurology, orthopaedics, body imaging, angiography, cardiology, breast imaging, oncology and paediatric imaging.
The Essenza also offers shorter scan times, increasing productivity, due to its revolutionary TIM (total imaging matrix) technology, which eliminates the need for patient repositioning during scans. Additionally, the Essenza’s ultra-short bore design will alleviate concerns of claustrophobia, since many patients can be imaged with their head outside of the bore.
The Somatom Definition AS 64 brings together high-end CT imaging, including neuro CT scanning. With 64 slice imaging, the AS provides physicians with more information to detect and diagnose conditions earlier. Siemens is also delivering additional x-ray and ultrasound equipment.
Key elements of the High Availability solution are Siemens OpenScape SIP based Voice & Unified Communications Server – a carrier class architecture based completely on Open Standards for third-party application integration, Enterasys Secure Networks LAN and wireless LAN using the latest 802.11n technology for immediate access to information from mobile devices, an EMC Storage Area Network, VMware Virtualised Server and Client Environment from our technology partners, Fujitsu and a Nextgen Technologies Triple Play IPTV Patient Entertainment Solution.
James Sheehan, chief executive of Sheehan Medical, said a key factor in choosing Siemens was its ability to provide the latest technology to enhance clinical outcomes, plus its ability to support it with financing, ICT and project management.
“We have first-class technology in all our hospitals and aim to make the Cork Medical Centre the most high-tech facility ever developed in Ireland. Siemens is an important part of this aim, their ability to provide an integrated approach that covers innovative technology will allow us levels of diagnosis and treatment that will be in unsurpassed in this country.
“The success of this deal marks the next stage of the on-going five-year relationship between Sheehan Medical and Siemens, whose technology we also use at our successful Galway clinic,” Sheehan said.
Features of the Cork Medical Centre
The Cork Medical Centre will be a five-star facility providing 75 single in-patient bedrooms, fully sealed with the latest in infection control. The main focus of the hospital will be surgery; there will be four operating theatres and a same-day surgery centre with 20 out-patient beds.
The hospital, which is located at the City Gate Complex in Mahon Point, will have a strong focus on neurology and cardiology.
The hospital will also house an intensive care unit; radiology a cardiology, oncology and neuroscience facility. International accreditation, benchmarking and auditing will be provided by an internationally renowned healthcare organisation
“We were keen to partner with Sheehan Medical in a vision to provide the best in surgical and diagnostic services,” said Kevin Dand, head of Siemens Healthcare in Ireland.
“The technology advancements of our imaging equipment will assist Cork Medical Centre in their mission to offer a much quicker, safer and seamless journey for the patient, improving the speed of diagnosis and treatment.”
Increasingly, patients and physicians prefer minimally invasive therapy over surgery because of the reduced recovery time.
“With the Artis zee Bi-plane technology, these interventions can be much quicker. Cork Medical Centre will take delivery of the latest bi-plane technology, enhancing the clinicians’ ability to diagnose, guide and treat the disease whether cardiac, neuro or oncology,” Dand added.
