Dr. İlker Köse, HIMSS Analytics Turkey Director, told us about Turkey’s rapid transformation in how they provide their achievements in the field of health and in the future what you expect with the development of technology in the health field . He said: “The Ministry of Health uses EMRAM and O-EMRAM and other maturity models as a tool to measure the current level of hospitals and other facilities, and then the Minister of Health sets some goals to improve existing capacity. That’s why we use EMRAM as a tool of health management.” He mentioned the policies of the Ministry of Health by his words. Dr. Kose has touched on the awareness of the power of knowledge that is required to eliminate deficiencies in the field of health in Turkey.
Steinberg: Hi My name is Bruce Steinberg, ı am vice president of HIMSS İnternational. Let s talk about Medipol and working that you are doing here. Turkey’s made tremendous progress you have over 160 stage six hospitals. I think three stage seven hospitals. How is this progress been made possible?
Köse: I think here what we have done with Himss and İstabul Medipol University is some kind of unique in the World. Himss Analytics is collaborating with many stakeholders in other countries generally individuals but here we are working with himss as a university. So we are I think trying to contribute some kind of academic perspective and we are focusing on the benefits of Himss Emram studies about what they are giving to hospitals in terms of healthcare quality and patient safety that is why I think we can convince physicians and nurses about the expected outcomes first.
Steinberg: İt is an amazing transformation something we have seen in other countries like Denmark for example. How is it made possible? Did the Ministry oh Health help was there a policy decision? What sort of drove this rapid transformation?
Köse: I think this is another difference feature of Turkey example. Here we are not talking about making a hospital stage six or seven in terms of Emram or O-Emram models. But we are talking about the management of whole country in order to improve the healthcare quality. The Ministry of Health here is using Emram and O-Emram and other maturity models as a tool in order to measure the existing level of the hospitals and other facilities and then Minister of Health sets some targets in order to improve the existing capacity. That is why we are using Emram as a tool of management of the healthcare, I think.
Steinberg: Thank you, which is amazing and I think that we see the progress everywhere in Turkey. Can I ask you in terms of innovation, how have you driven that innovation with the maturity models and with the hospitals?
Köse: Again I can understand this question about what we held gains while we are trying to stage six or seven in a within a hospital. First, generally hospitals are not so familiar with teamworking and but in order to make something better for example being stage six requires to work together. You have IT department, you have quality management department and so on. They have to work together first. That’s why they determine their gaps first and then they are finding am analytical method in order to understand a real problem and how to solve it and then at the end of a period of time they are solving their problem which means a kind of Innovation. Generally, a process innovation or sometimes service innovation can be done within a hospital by means of Himss Emram studies. That is why I can easily say that we have achieved many innovations in our hospitals by means of Emram studies.
Steinberg: And we see those better outcomes in both clinical outcomes so fewer people dying and getting better care. We also see probably operational outcomes lower cost people staying in hospital fewer days per visit. Let’s talk a bit about the future so you have done a lot. Is there anything else to do or you finished?
Köse: Of course, no. I think we need to change our perspective first of all especially starting from the physicians and nurses. When we talk about technology, generally it is understood that is some kind of rocket science or something like that. We are using technology in order to improve the healthcare quality. We are not talking about technology. We are talking about healthcare quality and patient safety and the way of we are giving healthcare service. That is why digital hospital is not a technological aspect. It is a new way of healthcare service. That is why I think in the future we need to convince all those stakeholders one by one about the new definition of digital hospital.
Steinberg: That is a fantastic answer. I am gonna use that one I’d give my talks. So, if you had a magic wand to fix one problem in Turkey, what would use it for the magic wand?
Köse: I think maybe we need to understand importance and the power of information. If we really as a managers as physicians as a nurse understand how it is powerful how it is strong in order to make some decisions, we will sow more eager to produce well defined and qualified data within our information systems and we will be better in terms of management and clinical area.