A hospital in Houston, Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, has opened an Asian Care Unit. The 20-bed unit located on the 7th floor of the hospital is receiving significant media attention on local Chinese and Vietnamese-language radio and is advertising on local television. It offers:
- Chinese and Vietnamese interpreters available throughout the hospital, in addition to other languages currently supported
- Bilingual nursing and clinical staff
- Patient dining menu featuring Asian entrees
- Asian TV programming available in all patient rooms
- Family-friendly atmosphere, where a guest may stay overnight in the patient’s room, with access to the refrigerator located in the designated reception area
Patients seem to like the care they receive:
Oblivious to the commotion on the next wing, Loc Do rested quietly in her hospital bed on Friday afternoon.
She watched Van-TV, a Vietnamese channel, in her room appointed with muted shades of apricot. Two black chopsticks rested in a bowl on her lunch tray.
Do receives dialysis at Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital, but her hospital stay this week was her first time in the hospital’s Asian unit.
“It’s more comfortable here,” Do, 79, said through interpreter Mimi-Cristien Nguyen. “Being here, you see Asian nurses and they come in and talk.”
I’m delighted Houston now has this; few hospitals offer it. I’d like to see it expand. 20 beds is a nice start, but to reach the national average of beds/population, the Greater Houston area needs about 450 more beds to accommodate the Chinese and Vietnamese speaking-at-home population or about 500 more beds to accommodate the entirety of the area Chinese and Vietnamese population to the same level as the national average of beds.
While I’m I’m a little perplexed how this culturally specialized care came about, I’m happy Houston has it. Memorial Hermann claims there’s an excellent business case:
The business case is that there are a large population of patients in that area — in Bellaire and the Beltway area, our primary service area,” said Jim Parisi, chief business development officer for the Memorial Hermann Health System’s southwest market. “This was a growing need for us and a way to address the cultural needs of an aging population.
Memorial Hermann apparently listened to it physicians:
The idea to open an Asian Unit was the brainchild of Memorial Southwest physicians hoping to overcome barriers to care by bridging culture and language gaps. Most non-English-speaking Asian patients communicate in Vietnamese and Chinese, Parisi said.
“It was difficult to converse and it was difficult for staff to do their work properly,” said Dr. Khanh Nguyen, an internist who practices in southwest Houston’s Asian Business District and usually admits his patients to Memorial Hermann Southwest. “Communication is such an essential criteria of having good care.”
But it was not long ago that Memorial Hermann was trying to sell this hospital to Harris County. I’m perplexed why Memorial Hermann would spend nearly $500,000 for this sort of renovation if it wants to sell.
Memorial Hermann Southwest Hospital is located at the intersection of Beechnut at the northbound side of Southwest Freeway:
– Justin Gillenwater
