Johns Hopkins Medicine to Collaborate with Peru-based Health Care Consortium

Dear Colleagues:

I've just returned from a small ceremony in the Sheikh Zayed Tower where Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI) and Pacífico Salud—a consortium of Peruvian hospitals, laboratories and outpatient centers—signed a landmark agreement that focuses on health system strengthening across Pacífico Salud's expansive network.

This exciting new opportunity represents our largest collaboration in Latin America to date. For many years, we've worked with Clínica Las Condes (Chile), Instituto Tecnológico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey (Mexico), Fundación Santa Fe de Bogotá (Colombia) and Hospital Punta Pacífica (Panama). This new relationship allows us to significantly expand the work we're doing to improve health care quality and delivery in that region. Peru has a population of more than 30 million, but does not have any Joint Commission International-accredited facilities. One of our most important goals will be assisting Pacífico Salud in achieving accreditation at its hospitals, outpatient centers and laboratories.

Our expansion overseas is about more than growth for growth's sake. It is fulfilling our mission to improve the health of the world by creating and transmitting innovative knowledge and fostering discovery. These relationships provide opportunities not only for us to share what we already know, but to gain insight into how to improve those methods and possibly make new discoveries along the way. So, while we assist others across the globe in improving the health care they deliver, we may learn how to better what we do right here in Baltimore.

In this era of 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 Johns Hopkins Medicine's success. Not only do they 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. 

Under this agreement, we'll work closely with our Peruvian colleagues to develop clinical and patient services programs, infection control initiatives and quality improvement processes. The affiliation will also focus on elevating nursing and introducing innovative care concepts.

Another aim for this relationship is to create an enhanced infrastructure for the delivery of patient care and provide a viable platform from which to launch a number of public health-focused initiatives related to the prevention and early detection of non-communicable diseases.

These initiatives have the potential to forever change the health of a nation. Please join me in celebrating this important milestone for our organization and in congratulating our colleagues at Johns Hopkins Medicine International for making it possible.

Sincerely,
Paul Rothman, M.D.
Dean of the Medical Faculty
CEO, Johns Hopkins Medicine