Healthcare Sector in Ghana: Euracare Advanced Diagnostics and Heart Centre in Accra

Interview with Rozan Newfeldt, Managing Director at Euracare Ghana

What is your assessment of the healthcare sector in Ghana?

In Accra itself, there are a number of diagnostics centers, as well as general practices and state hospitals that provide diagnostics services. Euracare came in to expand the current diagnostics services offered and to provide advanced diagnostics services. It is an expansion of the market but more specifically, we are differentiating ourselves with a focused approach on interventional cardiology and interventional radiology. Euracare established itself in Accra in order to provide an international standard diagnostics center, to provide patients with an international standard of infrastructure that is supplemented by world class specialists, and to provide accurate reporting, accurate treatment, and accurate examination. The environment that we have created here is really centered around the patient and the patient experience. The specialists and the consultants that support the facility are renowned and internationally trained, either in the UK or the US, with well-established track records. Our target market consists of expatriates, internationals, local insurance companies, and the large Ghanaian corporates. Anyone that comes through our doors will be helped.

Where did the idea for the center come from?

Euracare is a wholly owned subsidiary of Eurapharma, which is the healthcare arm of the CFAO Group. Eurapharma is among the leading distributors of pharmaceutical products and services in Africa and in French overseas territories. Euracare is the arm that forms the advanced diagnostics centers.

What are the vision, the philosophy, and the core values of Euracare?

With the reputation that we have established and with the experts that we have in this facility, we should not be worried about new opposition coming along.

We strive to provide a private healthcare facility with an international quality of care and service through the utilization of internationally qualified and renowned experts. Our unique selling feature is those experts. The philosophy is to create a service where the patient is the center and to provide those patients with quality medical care that is coupled with dedication to service delivery and excellence. We believe in delivering to the patient a focused, clinical experience that is effective, efficient, and stress free. We believe in getting our patients diagnosed and treated with unique medical procedures and world-class medical treatment. The core values of Euracare here in Accra are actually spelled out in the name Accra. We value accountability for the actions that we have towards our patients and we will always have the best interests of our patients at heart; caring because every one of our patients that walks through our door is unique and they become like family and part of the Euracare community; commitment to deliver the best service in the interest of the patient and to give that patient value for money; responsibility for advancing our quality of service to the level of international standards at all times. That spells Accra: accountability, caring, commitment, responsibility, and advancing our quality of care.

What have you achieved from your initial plans? You have just recently opened, but what is your business development plan for 2018?

In terms of the strategic plan for the center for 2108 and 2019, the model is based on development. We will be doing that through networking, going out, seeing multinational companies, and meeting with specialists, GPs, and other hospitals as well, building those relationships with or partnering with other service providers in the area. We would like to establish a presence and reputation. We do radiology interventions at the center, X-RAYs, MRIs, and CT scanning. We have engaged with a company called Telerad Solutions to improve on and to ensure that we have a very short turnaround time with respect to radiology reports for our patients. They do the reporting and ensure that the turnaround time from the moment that the patient has their examination until the report is ready to be sent back to the doctor is less than three hours. That is also one of our competitive advantages. If it is an emergency, we will report within one hour. Business development and then also quality and service are always very important to us. The patient needs to be at the center of our treatment. The patient experience is measured through feedback from the patient and patient satisfaction is very important. We also want to get feedback and suggestions from patients on what we can do better. That is where our quality of service and our service delivery plays a role. Also, in terms of quality of service, we pride ourselves on the fact that we have internationally renowned consultants working in the facility, so patients can get the best of treatment and care. The other leg of our plan is our leadership development. We have a young team in the facility itself, so we want to provide training opportunities for them, customer service for example, either by the customer service manager or from an outside company. Those are plans that we have in place to ensure that the service delivery inside the facility from an administrative point of view matches the service delivery that we have from a clinical or a medical point of view. We have to constantly ensure that those points are what the patient will experience inside the facility and that we deliver on that. The last pillar of our business model is around our finances. We are working towards ensuring that we are efficient in the manner that we deliver service, that we are profitable and sustain the business, and that we also benchmark our best operating practices. All of that is of course underscored by our vision and our values.

What are some challenges you are facing?

One of our main challenges is the competition or the possibility that more facilities such as ourselves are in development. There is a new hospital or cath lab that is being planned to be built. There is a potential new cardiac hospital. There are two new clinics that have come up. Internally, we also have the normal operational challenges that you have with a new, up and coming business. These are things that are also important for us, like development of our staff and ensuring that the software programs that we use are all delivering the results that we need. Another challenge, which is also an opportunity, is to go out and ensure, especially with these private clinics run by GPs and specialists, that we can work together rather than in opposition to uplift the healthcare service delivery in Accra.

What CSR activities are you involved in?

We have not concentrated too much on CSR in the past year, being a new business. We are going out and establishing ourselves and cycling staff from different areas that we need to get to work in the culture of Euracare. We are very much aware of CSR and know that it is a focus point for us going forward. We are in a country where CSR initiatives are very important and it is important to our business that we give back to the community. One of the first things we are looking at will happen in October, which is Breast Cancer Awareness month. There is a need to raise awareness in Accra and Ghana amongst women concerning the importance of mammograms and breast exams. Many women do not see it as important. We are planning to have free screenings on one Saturday open day in conjunction with one of the bigger hospitals. The screening would be our CSR initiative and possibly a discounted price with anything that comes out of the screening that needs further action. In November, the facility will be one year old. We will then have an open day which lends itself to more CSR initiatives. At that point, we would want to do a small survey among the public to get some opinions and input from their point of view with regards to things like what their expectations are from a facility like us and our involvement in the community.

You have experience coming from South Africa and other countries. What was your first impression of Ghana as a country and the sector itself?

The way that healthcare is practiced in this country is slightly different compared to South Africa in terms of how it is set up. All of our physicians, GPs and specialists, practice independently in the private healthcare environment. There could not be a link between a private provider and a consultant. Of course, in the state hospitals it is different in that the consultants all work for that particular hospital. Private healthcare in South Africa is really at the level of first world countries. If you walk in there, the expectation of the service that you will receive is quite high. Most people have medical insurance that can pay for private healthcare. There is also quite a bit of network deals between medical insurances and private companies that ensure that it does not matter which option you have under the medical insurance, there will be a private provider or private hospital that you can attend. Because the consultant and the hospital are independent of each other, although they work in partnership, a patient would choose to go to a specific doctor based on the doctor’s reputation and expertise and the patient will pay for that service. On the hospital side, the patient’s medical insurance will pay, but the patient walks into the hospital with the expectation that they have paid their doctor top dollar and they expect that level of treatment. As a result, there is really quite healthy competition amongst the private healthcare providers and they have to raise their game all the time. If you walk into any private healthcare facility, the aesthetics are of a private healthcare nature. The expertise and the service from the doctor matches that. In Ghana, it is still a little bit different.

We just interviewed a group that is working on a long-term project for nine new public hospitals, two in October and by May next year, the next seven. They will bring 1,600 beds for phase one alone. What is your assessment of this?

The waiting times are quite long in the state hospitals, so there is clearly a need for people to receive better service. We hope that it will give better service to the public, and that will always be a good thing, but only if there are more hospitals that are in the areas where they are accessible to the public. For a facility like Euracare, patients will pay to come here for the service, and there are good reasons for this. One is the expertise of the doctors. At Euracare, patients can have the experience of an international level of treatment and quality of healthcare. Previously, they were flying to the UK or India or South Africa, but now, they can get that same experience here. The center is aesthetically pleasing, although that is not always necessary. When patients pay for a service, there is a certain expectation that facilities must also look the part. With the reputation that we have established and with the experts that we have in this facility, we should not be worried about new opposition coming along. One needs to be grateful when that happens because it just means that the population gets better care. At the end of the day, that is why we are here, to ensure that the people of Ghana have access to quality healthcare and quick turnarounds at all times.

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