July 2017

12 APAC / July 2017 , AE170098 Highest Quality Private Medical Care in the Field of ENT Surgery Southern ENT/Adelaide Sinus Centre is extremely honoured and delighted to have been awarded the Best SpecialisedMedical Practice 2017 award for South Australia. The Company was set up to provide the highest quality private medical care in the field of ENT surgery. It’s Director, Professor Simon Carney is one of Australia’s leading clinical academic surgeons with an extensive track record and a high international profile. He has pioneered several new surgical techniques within the field of ENT surgery and has worked withmany industry partners to develop new technology and instruments within this field. As such, he was ideally placed to set up a company to attract patients seeking the very best ENT advice and surgery, fromwithin Australia and also overseas. From the very start, the business set out to be “not just another specialist medical practice”. In addition to comfortable waiting areas and consulting rooms, the practice has invested heavily in information technology. As for our online presence, we have a detailed website and patients are provided with an extensive amount of supporting literature about the diseases they have got and the proposed treatment plan, including any surgical procedures. An interactive DVD was created so that patients could spend time at their leisure going through all the risks and potential complications of surgery, prior to making a final decision about whether to proceed or not. The practice relies very heavily on word of mouth referrals from GP’s and previous patients. As such, the practice goal is to make every patient leave our premises completely satisfied with the consultation from the medical staff, interaction with the other practice staff, the paper and multimedia information they have been provided and complete transparency about any fees and charges. It is always reassuring when patients tell us they have had such a positive experience, that they have recommended friends or family to come and see us for their own consultation. Surgery in general is experiencing a negative image, currently due to a background of excessively high charges being raised when in reality, patients could obtain similar services from a number of other providers at a much-reduced cost. This issue is something we have addressed by being extremely open and transparent with our fees and charges, signing up to “agreed gap” arrangements with private health companies and, a policy that overseas patients are charged exactly the same as their Australian counterparts. ENT surgery in Australia is very highly regarded and this has allowed us to attract clients from all over the world. This has its unique problems in terms of follow up and continued care but, information technology can greatly facilitate this with the use of video conferencing, email and digital photography. The practice holds regular staff meetings to ensure that the high quality of health care we provide continues to evolve and improve. Standard operating procedures and documentation are held on the server, and all staff have access to these at any moment in time should there be any queries at the front desk. This allows the patients to feel reassured that they are in good hands however unique their diagnoses and clinical pathway might be. We are glad to be able to say we do not have a high turnover of staff, as we do our very best to maintain personnel who have proved valuable to our business. When recruiting, all members of the team are involved in the decision making process to a greater or lesser degree. It is certainly important that any new personnel fit in with the existing staff as, in a small business, if even a single person does not feel part of an overall team then it can have disastrous consequences. Whilst being extremely busy is flattering and rewarding, it does create additional stress for the doctors and we will be expanding our consultant team within the next 12-24 months to try and reduce waiting times for patients, broaden the spectrum of specialties we are able to offer (e.g. specialised paediatric ENT surgery), and provide additional vacation cover. We are very pleased to be involved with a new training initiative within the Asia Pacific region. Asia Pacific Otolaryngology Surgical Training (APOST) is a not for profit institution set up to train surgeons from poorer countries in the South East Asian region. Our staff provide training and support for APOST by travelling throughout South East Asia to teach on these training courses. These are greatly rewarding and it is certainly a privilege to be involved in this extremely exciting initiative. Finally, we would like to thank Al Global for this award and, we believe it will reinforce our position in the ENT sector as a leading provider of quality services.