Johns Hopkins Medicine International to Collaborate with Four Hospitals in Kuwait

Dear Colleagues,

I am delighted to let you know that on Sunday, Dec. 25, Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI) and the Ministry of Health of Kuwait signed a watershed agreement that calls for JHI to assist the Kuwaiti government in raising the standard of health care delivery at four of Kuwait’s five secondary care public hospitals.

This exciting new opportunity in Kuwait represents our largest international collaboration to date. Together with our three managed hospitals in the United Arab Emirates (Tawam, Corniche and Al Rahba), clinical oversight of Tawam Molecular Imaging Centre and the affiliation between our Wilmer Eye Institute and the King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital in Saudi Arabia, this will dramatically expand our presence in that important region of the world.

Our expansion overseas, as well as within the United States, represents more than mere growth for growth’s sake—it is fulfilling our historic mission to “provide medical leadership to the world” while fostering intellectual discoveries, creating and transmitting innovative knowledge, and improving human health in our city, our nation and our world.

Frankly, in this new era of health care reform and economic uncertainty, it is ever more challenging to advance and sustain our mission. That’s why these new relationships with like-minded health care organizations are critical to our success. Not only do these new opportunities give us the ability to extend our mission to new regions, to train new generations of health care providers, and to enhance our research enterprise in Baltimore, throughout the United States and abroad, they provide some measure of financial security for us during very uncertain times.

It takes revenue from a variety of sources to fuel the vast research, educational and clinical care enterprise that is Johns Hopkins Medicine. Our new relationships are but one such source, albeit important ones.

Under the new arrangement with Kuwait, Hopkins will collaborate on health care delivery and medical education at four of their hospitals—Amiri, Farwaniya, Jahra and Adan—which account for more than 40 percent of the public sector beds in the country and provide care for most of Kuwait’s population. Hopkins will help Kuwait’s Ministry of Health to develop in-country talent in both hospital administration and clinical care. We will do this through intensive observerships, knowledge transfer initiatives, and the sharing of our operational and administrative experience and expertise in patient safety, information technology and international accreditation.

These and similar new relationships provide us unique opportunities to advance the JHM mission throughout the world, elevating the standard of research, education and patient care, and ensuring our own continued vitality and success.

I hope you will be as excited about these new opportunities as I am.

Sincerely,

Edward D. Miller, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine