InterHealth Canada Limited,

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InterHealth Canada Limited,
based in Toronto, provides the full spectrum of healthcare services to the international market.
Understanding the needs of and “partnering” with government clients.
InterHealth Canada is unusual among international
healthcare providers; having been established as a
private and “for profit” company, its shareholders
include both private sector companies and leading
public sector institutions from across Canada – major
teaching hospitals, leading universities and large
hospital groups covering all aspects of modern
healthcare. The company was incorporated in 1994 on
the initiative of the then Provincial Government of
Ontario, in partnership with a number of large public
hospitals and private companies, as a vehicle for the
export of Canadian healthcare expertise; that objective
and structure is maintained to this day. The company
is now considered by many to be the leading Canadian
provider of healthcare internationally.
That combination of private and public sector interests
among the shareholders, is reflected at board level and
in the senior management where directors and senior
executives include individuals who have a long
experience of working in both sectors.
As a result, InterHealth Canada prides itself on having
a real understanding of the constraints under which the
public sector has to operate, whether in North America,
Europe, Africa, the Middle East or elsewhere. Indeed,
in all its work with the public sector, the company seeks
to develop with its government clients a relationship as
close as possible to that of a “partnership” in which it
can bring its experience and expertise plus the best of
North American healthcare practice, to the benefit of its
“partner” in a manner which allows the government
client to preserve its rightful position as the “National
Healthcare Provider” to its electorate and others.
Apart from that underlying ethos of “partnership”, one of
the company’s more significant assets is its ability to
call upon its shareholder base for support, guidance
and technical expertise in the diverse fields of medicine
– often in the form of visiting experts in a particular
field.
Those attributes have enabled InterHealth Canada to
approach the international market for the provision of
healthcare from a unique position of strength.
By way of example, the company was awarded the first
licence for the provision of a private sector hospital in
Beijing, it has worked with the World Bank in Hungary,
in Thailand and has very successfully operated a new
350 bed tertiary care hospital for the government of the
Emirate of Abu Dhabi. It is also presently operating a
new trauma centre for the government of the Emirate of
Dubai, a diabetes research and treatment centre for an
arm of the government of Kuwait, a leading Women’s
and Children’s Hospital also in Kuwait, two Treatment
Centres for the Department of Health in England and,
earlier this year, signed a contract for the financing,
design, construction, equipping, staffing, facilities
management and clinical operation of two full service
hospitals for the government of the Turks and Caicos
Islands in the Caribbean. Most recently, the company
has now signed Heads of Agreement for a contract to
operate and manage a Neurology and Neurosurgery
ward for one of the leading Foundation Hospitals in
London, England.
As an adjunct to its core business of operating and
managing healthcare facilities, InterHealth Canada also
provides consultancy services to governments in
relation to specific aspects of healthcare such as the
provision of Emergency Services or the provision of a
specific service such as Oncology.
That consultancy division also plays a vital role for both
governments and private sector clients in the provision
of technical advice and assistance in relation to the
planning and establishment of new facilities - spatial
analyses, the specification and procurement of medical
equipment and clinical and non-clinical commissioning.
Healthcare has been rightly described as being
dependent upon people – a “people business” – and
this concept is reflected throughout the InterHealth
Canada group.
Uniquely, the company has for many years included its
own recruitment subsidiary with a very substantial
database of healthcare professionals from around the
world through which the company has recruited the
clinicians and other medical and non medical staff for
the hospitals and other healthcare facilities which it
operates. That division also carries out all necessary
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credentialing and other background checks both for the
company’s own purposes and as required by the laws
of the particular jurisdiction in which the company may
be working.
Having well qualified staff is only a part of the solution:
staff have to be confident that the HR Policies and
Procedures which the company has in place meet all
legal requirements, are fair, will be properly operated by
management, that the financial packages are
maintained in line with market trends and that
opportunities for ongoing professional development will
be made available. To that end, InterHealth Canada
has its own staff training programmes headed by a
Training Officer and also seeks to develop
arrangements with universities and other teaching
institutions in those countries where it is working. That
the company meets those staff objectives is evidenced
by staff turnover rates which are well below average
and by the receipt of a “Best Employer of the Year”
award from the government of the Philippines.
Only by providing a quality service can the needs of
patients, of sponsoring governments and the
aspirations of a qualified staff be properly met.
Quality stems from good facilities and modern, properly
maintained equipment operated by qualified staff
working to properly drawn up and approved policies
and procedures within a clinical and operational
management structure which monitors key parameters,
provides a forum for peer review and has the ability to
accommodate changes which may be found necessary
or desirable to reflect changing patterns or volumes in
the patients being treated and recent developments in
the practice of medicine.
InterHealth Canada operates its facilities according to
policies and procedures and within structures which
have been developed to reflect best practice and which
are kept under regular review to ensure that they reflect
the rapid advances in healthcare and changes in
recommended practice. While being essentially
“standard” throughout the group, the company
recognises that local law has to be complied with;
accordingly in each jurisdiction those policies and
procedures are adapted to reflect the particular
requirements of the local environment in which the
company is working.
For the company and also importantly for a sponsoring
government which needs to be able to maintain
statistical information as a basis for its national
healthcare provision, quality is also dependent upon
having complete and accurate information and the
ability to access the latest developments in medicine.
These criteria were specific requirements of the Turks
and Caicos Islands Government with which InterHealth
Canada has contracted to deliver clinical services to
the Islands’ population for the next twenty three years.
To meet those specific requirements the company will
be developing central and remote site IM&T patient
management systems using the latest available
software technology which will link into the
government’s national database. This also enables the
company to access the long term future development of
telemedicine functions so that the latest advances in
medicine will be brought to the population of these
Caribbean islands
A key measure of quality is the achievement and
maintenance by ongoing assessment, of accreditation
by one of the internationally recognised Accreditation
Bodies or similar national agency. Interhealth Canada
is proud to be associated with the Canadian Council on
Health Services Accreditation (CCHSA). The
company’s directors and senior executives include past
and present assessors for the CCHSA. The company
has a detailed knowledge of the requirements for such
accreditation and takes considerable care to ensure
that all its protocols, policies and procedures reflect the
most recent practices sought by the CCHSA when
determining whether or not Accreditation is to be
afforded and then renewed.
In England, all healthcare facilities have to be licensed
annually by the Healthcare Commission and this
requirement affords a similar measure of quality. The
two Treatment Centres which the company operates
were licensed on opening and have had those licences
renewed annually without question. Many of the
practices which the company operates within those
Treatment Centres are held out by the Department of
Health as examples of good practice to be aimed for by
others.
That dedication to the delivery of quality healthcare
enabled the company to commit to and to achieve
accreditation of the tertiary hospital in Abu Dhabi within
two years of opening – the first hospital outside North
America to be accredited by the CCHSA – and allows
the company to confidently predict that the new
hospitals in the Turks & Caicos Islands will similarly be
accredited within two years of opening.
Website:
www.interhealthcanada.com
Tel: +1 416 362 4681
Fax: +1-416-362 7633