Health Inventures, an ASC development and management company based in Broomfield, Col., and Hammes Co., a Brookfield, Wis.-based strategic planning and real estate consulting firm, announced they would partner to join Safe Hands Health System Holding Co. of Bahrain in building 30 branded and accredited medical facilities in the Middle East.
“We selected Health Inventures for its significant ambulatory healthcare management expertise,” said Abdul Wahab Al Mutawa, chairman and managing director of Safe Hands in a news release. “They have had great success partnering with many leading hospitals in the United States and will be invaluable as our managing/operating partner for the facilities we are developing in the Gulf Cooperation Council States.”
Mr. Al Mutawa said Safe Hands chose Hammes for its expertise in healthcare planning and development. “They have worked with many forward-thinking healthcare systems in the United States and will be invaluable as our facility development advisor,” Mr. Al Mutawa said. Health Inventures will develop policies and procedures and help to organize, manage and operate the facilities, which will include ASCs and surgical hospitals ranging in size from 20 to 60 beds.
“This is bringing healthcare to a part of the world that really needs it,” says Health Inventures President and CEO Dick Hanley. “Hammes will be providing design planning and construction management support and we will assist with our [Bahraini] partner. We expect to create a network of up to 30 medical facilities in six countries over the next eight years.”
The partners will locate centers in population centers of 80,000 or more, building healthcare facilities ranging in size from 95,000 to 125,000 square feet on sites in Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Facilities will include ASCs, diagnostic imaging centers, freestanding emergency rooms, maternity care and pharmacy centers and will seek accreditation from the Joint Commission International. The first four facilities are slated for a January 2012 completion.
Hammes President and COO Rich Galling says the company is excited to bring a higher level of healthcare services to the Gulf States. Mr. Galling says the partners will help Safe Hands “realize their goals of developing a new, progressive (Gulf States) healthcare system.”
Safe Hands will provide the financing through Middle Eastern capital sources.
Health Inventures operates and develops ASCs, managing more than 40 in the U.S. and partnering with its subsidiary ¬— Ascent Health — on three in Ireland and the United Kingdom. Health Inventures will serve as a managing partner in the newly formed Safe Hands Management Company, Mr. Hanley says.
Christian Ellison, who leads Ascent Health, says the company first made a foray into the international healthcare market in 2003 when it formed Mercury Health in the United Kingdom to own and operate ASCs with Britain’s National Health Service. It opened four NHS centers and a private orthopedic hospital, as well a private surgical hospital in Ireland.
Mr. Ellison says the British and Irish experience prepared the company for the Middle East venture. “U.S. healthcare providers have to be conscious of cultural differences,” he says. “It is beneficial to have a good working relationship with local partners in order to increase the likelihood of your success.”
He says Health Inventures is not proactively focusing on international expansion. “The Middle Eastern opportunity was presented to us and was such a unique opportunity that we chose to pursue it,” he says.
Health Inventures will work with international recruiting firms to secure healthcare professionals both from Middle Eastern countries and abroad. Mr. Ellison says the partners will develop business and clinical models tailored for the Gulf States market operated by Health Inventures. “We will incorporate best practices from the U.S. and the Middle East with a particular focus on ambulatory care delivery,” he says.
Mr. Ellison says the partners face “all the typical challenges of a start-up business plus challenges associated with working in a different culture and across multiple time zones.”
Learn more about Health Inventures.
