Once again, bright and early, our group boarded the bus at 8:00 am to drive to Austral University. Today’s schedule was filled with walking tours around the Austral hospital, and we were guided by nurses and staff throughout the morning. During the tour we visited places such as the pediatric intensive care unit, as well as, the emergency room and research labs.
Throughout the tour, the nurses gave us a lot of information on how exactly the hospital and its different units work. They explained to us how their system was structured, from how many nurses are on duty, to how care patients with specific needs. Many of the nurses expressed how content or pleased they were with the work they did at Austral Hospital. It was interesting to hear what the Austral nurses had to say about the hospital, and what it was like to work there.
After the walking tour of the hospital, we had a little break, and I got the chance to open my notebook and review that the doctors had previously said about Austral in their presentations. I wondered how what the nurses mentioned, related to what the Austral presenters seemingly gloated about. The previous day the presenters explained how the Austral’s Medical Center mission statement was centered around the, “pursuit of truth and a culture of life,” and it was impressive to see how the hospital actually went about that.
In the hospital everything they do is to generate value for the patient, because they believe that if you’re not generating value for the patient, you’re generating waste. As well as being extremely patient centered, the Austral Medical Center pursues truth in its’ laboratory. In the lab they mentioned how tirelessly they have been working on a molecule that promotes the immune system, and dampans pain. They explained to us how they know the molecule works on rats, but before they try to create a drug until they have even more proof that these rats are responding accordingly to the molecule.
In other areas of the hospital they do research discovering the truth behind scams many insurance companies apply. For example, one of the head doctors in innovation, explained how the HIVE (Health, Innovation, Value, and Enterprise) Unit attempts to create more efficiency. The doctor spoke about how they have found out that insurance companies get people to spend more when people could actually be treated differently, preventing them from spending additional money in the future. He also touched on the idea that there are 5 different trends that need to be considered when innovating, and how the HIVE Unit combats these problems today.
Additionally, one of the presentos explains how Austral has a culture, and it attempts to keep this culture intact. Austral follows the Catholic religion, and has many crosses and Virgin Mary’s throughout the hospital. As well as keeping their religion alive through decorations, Austral will not perform abortions in accordance to the bible. If a women ask for an abortion they will politely refuse and ask for the women to attend a different institution for the procedure.
In all aspects, Austral attempts to pursue truth, as well as, keep their culture alive and breathing. It was very interesting to see how their values were spread throughout the hospital. I was able to put pieces of information from the two days together after the walking tour of the hospital, and speaking with the nurses.