KINGSTON, Jamaica — The University Hospital of the West Indies (UHWI) in partnership with The University of the West Indies (UWI) is set for major improvements in patient care and delivery this year.

The two parties have a standing MOU since the hospital was opened in 1953, where UHWI would facilitate teaching, research, and patient care to support the faculty of medical sciences at UWI, Mona. The MOU offers funding to the hospital to improve in the areas of cooperation and to improve services offered to patients across the island. This partnership has led to an integrated health management system to manage all of the clinical entities of the UWI, Mona campus where the principal also sits on the hospital board.

There are several major changes the hospital is expected to see. These include an integrated hospital information management system that will improve record keeping and general management of the hospital.  This will be important for increasing the number of international patients.  An international patient office has been established and the hospital has started to attract a number of international patients.

The second major effort is redeveloping the physical infrastructure of the hospital instead of refurbishing because of the lack of success from multiple efforts at refurbishing an aged 1950 building. This will encompass not only the buildings but also modernising the equipment. Among the areas to receive emergency attention is surgery where the hospital will be purchasing new equipment.

The third strategy will be to increase bed capacity, a demand caused by the rising number of non-communicable diseases. The hospital will be increasing its intensive care bed capacity by 13 before the end of this quarter. Construction of this brand new intensive care unit will add to another 8-bed unit to be constructed in the surgical unit.