Hospital da Luz Lisboa: 1st private university hospital in Portugal
A month after the start of this new stage in their lives, in a new degree course and accepting the challenge of being the first students in this private medicine course, the 50 students of Universidade Católica Portuguesa (UCP) Medicine School will take their first tour to the university hospital, where throughout the course their practical and clinical education will take place: Hospital da Luz Lisboa.
As stated by Luz Saúde CEO, Isabel Vaz, in the opening ceremony of the new medicine course, on September 14, Hospital da Luz Lisboa “is ready!” “Today, in partnership with UCP, Hospital da Luz launches a new cycle of development and an exercise of future projection in what constitutes the major investment of all: the investment in the next generations of health professionals, allowing them to deal successfully with the extraordinary challenges for health in the 21st century and the digital era. And above all, as citizens, to be an active part in this extraordinary new world”, she added.
“The largest and most advanced private hospital in Portugal”
Isabel Vaz announced, then, a few facts and numbers concerning what is today “the largest and most advanced private hospital in Portugal”, which makes it the inevitable “clinical and research partner” of UCP, in this project.
- It has its own clinical staff, with nurses, health technicians, and over 300 full-time physicians – many of which with a doctor’s degree –, and a model of multidisciplinary clinical governance, based on team work and focused on the patients.
- Since its opening, in 2007, it has already served over 1.6 million people, having carried out about 6 million consultations and emergency assistance, over 170 thousand surgeries, over 30 thousand deliveries, and about 30 million complementary diagnostic exams.
- It has JCI accreditation since 2018, with a global compliance over 98%, concerning the highest hospital standards defined by that international organization. “This will remain our goal: to be exemplary in accomplishing the best practices of clinical excellence and patient safety”, reinforced the Luz Saúde CEO.
- It develops an intensive educational and researching activity and a quite relevant training activity: “Today, those who enter the Luz Saúde Group’s units, feel the pulsing energy of the students of the different faculties: medicine, nursing, health technicians, managers, engineers, pharmacists and other professionals related with the sector”.
- 26 physicians carry out their specialty internship at Hospital da Luz Lisboa, in areas such as anatomical pathology, anaesthesiology, internal medicine, intensive medicine, nuclear medicine, neurology and medical oncology. The hospital awaits the evaluation by the Association of Doctors’ speciality colleges, in gynaecology/obstetrics, general surgery, radiology, neuroradiology, paediatrics and urology, in view of obtaining educational competence in those specialities.
- It has a Simulation Centre of medical training, which is one of the largest in Europe: around 10 million euro investment over 1,300 m2, with 10 advanced simulation rooms, over 100 simulators, about 30 cameras and sound and audio-visual systems, and real clinical equipment. “Today, we already count with 70 simulation trainers. Approximately 1,500 professionals obtained training with resort to simulation, pre and post-graduate, as well as advanced medical training”, she explained on the subject.
- And all of this in a health campus where Luz Saúde introduced an innovating concept, in terms of healthcare integration: at Hospital da Luz Lisboa, are combined a highly differentiated hospital, a unit of continuing and palliative care, a centre of general and family medicine, and a residential complex destined to the elderly population. As referred by Isabel Vaz in this ceremony, “the Luz health complex in Lisbon represents the largest investment ever made in the area of private health in Portugal: about 300 million euro, in the last 15 years”.
The commitment: 50 internists in training
Isabel Vaz then highlighted what represents already today Hospital da Luz Lisboa for the future of these first 50 UCP medicine students and many others that will be professionally involved in the area of health: “We reiterate, here today, the commitment of achieving within the next five years around 50 internists in training, thus contributing clearly and undoubtedly to the specialized medical training capacity in our country. Ultimately, that is what students need when leaving this course”.
On the other hand, and referring to the already existing partnerships with Portuguese universities and research centres in areas such as engineering – “where the medicine partnerships of the 21st century are played, namely, in robotics, computational medicine and advanced data science” –, the Luz Saúde CEO made a point of asserting that “Hospital da Luz Lisboa is already today an innovation, research and entrepreneurism platform, combining technology and medical education science, and aiming to be a development pole of new training models for health professionals”. The goal is clear: To turn knowledge into transactional industry, creating wealth for our country”.