By NUR HAZIQAH A MALEK / Pic By ISMAIL CHE RUS

The National Heart Institute’s (IJN) private healthcare division will introduce three new initiatives and services throughout the year to cater for the ongoing demands and diversify its offerings from cardiac health.

Its operation head and director Datuk Dr Mohamed Ezani Md Taib said the institute is going beyond catering to heart diseases after having engaged specialists involved with kidney diseases, obesity and cancer.

“Soon we’ll be opening our own outpatient dialysis centre, which will be able to attract more patients.

“As you know, we have a lot of dialysis patients, so it is among our services that are going beyond cardiac excellence,” he said at the IJN division’s second anniversary celebration yesterday.

“Most of our patients are not solely having heart problems — because when the heart is weak, it also affects the lungs.

“Some of them also have diabetes and high blood pressure which affect their kidneys. They require intensive treatment,” he added.

According to Dr Mohamed Ezani, the private clinic arm is also currently developing women health services that will be spearheaded by its consultant cardiologists.

“We know that women’s health is a major issue, therefore we should be able to deliver the services with the specialists that we have,” he said.

Dr Mohamed Ezani said among the services the clinic plans to deliver for women include exclusive screenings such as mammograms, ultrasounds for the breast and pap smears.

Among the services that will be added at the clinic’s wellness centre is a free package after the purchase of 10 health packages.

“This is something we’re working to offer on the industry’s request — when a lot of people come in together for these packages, they’ll be able to get a free one after the purchase of 10,” he said.

Another new service the clinic will be rolling out is heart health screenings for government employees, Dr Mohamed Ezani said.

“For government employees to receive an echo test, in actuality, it takes many months. We are trying to reduce the rate as low as possible so that they can come in.

“This is also part of our contribution to the government, in making sure that their employees are all healthy,” he said.

Meanwhile, as part of the clinic’s anniversary celebration, it launched a virtual relity (VR) viewing of the private clinic and wellness centre, making it the first hospital in Malaysia to embrace VR360 technology.

The virtual journey video available on its website includes patients flow from registration to admission, discharge, as well as flow of patients undergoing wellness screening.

Throughout 2018, the clinic’s inpatient records have posted 905 number of surgeries and 3,648 admissions.

Meanwhile, its outpatient records registered 20,938 visits versus 17,953 visits the previous year.

*The article has been edited for mistakes based on the input from the related parties. We apologise for the errors and the inconvenience caused.