Business View Caribbean - August/September 2018

94 95 the medical profession. The hospital has a capacity of 600 beds and provides a wide range of medical, diagnostic, and therapeutic services. In addition to general surgery, QEH also offers minimal invasive surgery, urology, ENT (ear, nose, and throat), obstetrics and gy- necology, cardio-thoracic, orthopedic, dental, pediatrics, ophthalmology, and neurosurgery. Because Barbados practices a form of so- cialized healthcare, any Barbadian national or permanent resident of the island can take ad- vantage of any of QEH’s services at no charge. Funded by universal taxation, QEH receives its operating budget as approved by Parlia- ment and dispersed from the treasury via the Minister of Finance. In 2016, Business View Magazine spoke with QEH’s CEO, Dr. Dexter James, who pro- vided information on several topics, includ- ing: the hospital’s continued exploration and exploitation of information and communica- tions technology (ICT); its pursuit of various AT A GLANCE QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL WHAT: Barbados’ primary, acute care medical facility WHERE: Bridgetown, Barbados WEBSITE: www.qehconnect.com THE QUEEN ELIZABETH HOSPITAL accreditations by internationally recognized bodies; its philanthropic and fundraising programs; and its support of a new financ- ing model which would replace the taxa- tion model with one more akin to socialized health insurance. Recently, we contacted Dr. James and asked him to update us on those specific topics, as well as any other news that he deemed relevant. The following is an edited transcript of his replies: “On the developments around ICT (Infor- mation and Communications Technology): the government has implemented a Nation- al Health Management Information Sys- tem, and the Queen Elizabeth Hospital is currently rolling out the Electronic Medical Records (EMR) module as one component of the patient administration suite. We should have this implementation completed by the end of November. Patient’s electronic records have been implemented across all polyclinics and will allow for the seamless