From Lima, Peru, to Hangzhou, China, and from Toronto, Canada, to Beirut, Lebanon, Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI) recently welcomed leaders, clinicians, educators and investigators from across our global affiliates to Baltimore for the 14th annual Partners Forum.
We also invited Johns Hopkins Medicine colleagues to share their innovative research on and practical application of “intelligent medicine,” the theme of this year’s event.
Through panels, presentations and posters, we learned how local and global experts are incorporating innovations such as Big Data, artificial intelligence, precision medicine, machine learning and telehealth to improve the health of people and the communities they call home.
Delving into this topic of intelligent medicine was certainly a draw for many of our global affiliates. More than embracing innovation, though, attendees said they wanted to learn from others’ successes and challenges, strengthen connections and initiate new collaborations.
Specifically, here are some perspectives on the value of attending JHI’s Partners Forum:
“The event is a great place … to share knowledge, experience and areas of improvement. You get to share your struggles and successes and lessons for doing the great things that we do. We also get support and solutions for the difficulties that we face. Given the multicultural forum, you can meet different people, and you can see how things can be done in a different way very successfully. ... Every time a lecture was presented, I thought, ‘We can do that.’ Or, ‘This is something that we struggle with, too.’ … There are a lot of insights in the content that are applicable to the institutions here.”
― Dr. Mohammad Al Ghamdi, Chief Population Health Officer, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare
“It’s really interesting to explore innovations and what technology can offer to help our patients improve their outcomes, especially from the preventive side … . It’s nice to see what is out there and what we can bring to our organizations back home. At the same time, we also have something to offer. We can offer our local experience. Although we go through a lot of the same pitfalls or issues, there are ways that other people are doing things innovatively or new things that we can also try. … Why try to reinvent the wheel? We can find something and tailor it more to our patient population and see if that will work. … We can really learn a lot, ask questions and then share that with our colleagues. … That’s the advantage of being here and seeing all the opportunities.”
― Vida Baky, Process Improvement Specialist, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare
“This is an excellent opportunity to get up to date not only about what Hopkins is doing, but also the other affiliated institutions. This is very helpful for us because we are working with Hopkins to develop a new hospital in Puerto Rico, and we believe they will bring knowledge, processes and procedures to start a new standard of care for our island. … We are taking a lot of ideas and concepts from here that we would like to implement in our health care environment. … We also are hearing from professors, physicians and administrative personnel who we know we are going to engage with more down the road. We will be developing relationships with them, and it’s very good to know them personally.”
― Ivan Colon, Consultant, Dorado Beach Health
“I appreciate being able to connect with the forefront of what’s happening globally with Johns Hopkins. We’re interested in intelligent medicine at Medcan, as are other partners here who want to be seen as leaders. … Medcan’s ~30,000 members are looking to us to be leaders in health care who use good, solid evidence to adopt treatments and technologies that actually work. … We see ourselves as the face of Johns Hopkins in Toronto, and we have plans to expand across Canada, so we will be bringing the brand and innovations of Johns Hopkins with us.”
― Dr. Peter Nord, Chief Medical Officer, Medcan Clinic
“We’ve heard a lot of ideas that we want to implement as far as technology is concerned. … Being able to hear about other experiences from other countries also helps us because, even though they are from another country, the problems are still the same. … The networking is great, and we get to enrich ourselves with the experiences of others. Then we can go back to Puerto Rico with a new perspective, new ideas and a lot more enthusiasm as to what we want to do.”
― Belinda Toro, CEO, Dorado Beach Health
“My hospital is an affiliation with Johns Hopkins Medicine. I’ve been to many other hospitals in the United States … but I had never been to Johns Hopkins Hospital. I would like to have an idea about the Johns Hopkins family. ... Being an affiliate in such a great organization helps our hospital staffs to operate better and to be better able to achieve Joint Commission International accreditation. I’m happy to work with a staff that is under the Johns Hopkins mentality.”
― Dr. Cemil Uygur, Professor of Urology, Anadolu Medical Center
