Whitfield Clinic receives ISO 9001

Mr. David Beirne, CEO of Whitfield Clinic being presented with the ISO 9001:2008 certificate for Cleaning Services at Whitfield Clinic by Mr. John O Carroll, Managing Director of Zehnacker Healthcare Ireland.

This award represents Whitfield Clinic’s commitment to total quality management; a continually improving process approach implemented throughout the hospital. Critical cleaning processes and their interactions are understood and documented, with a strong organisational commitment to all the facets of the ISO 9001 Quality Management Systems. The quality management system is verified by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI) with the aim of improving the quality, the design, the performance and the safety of the Cleaning Services at Whitfield Clinic.

Whitfield CEO David Beirne emphasises the importance of this award, “Hygiene standards are a vital component of the service we provide. This award provides an independent recognition of the standards we demand internally. It recognises the measures our clinical team put in place, and the efforts of our staff and partners to implement these measures. We are all very proud to receive this recognition.”

Whitfield Clinic hosts 3rd Hip and Groin sports injury Symposium

150 delegates travelled from all over Ireland to Waterford’s Whitfield Clinic on Saturday April 18th for the 3rd Hip and Groin Symposium.  

The highlight of event was a live arthroscopic hip operation performed on-site by Mr. Patrick Carton to demonstrate the treatment of Hip Impingement.

Mr. Carton organised the event to bring together specialists in hip and groin sports surgery, as well as national experts in sports rehabilitation, to discuss many of the difficulties surrounding hip and groin sports injury and its management.

The symposium, chaired by Mr. Tadgh O’Sullivan consisted of a number of presentations on the diagnosis and management of chronic groin and hip conditions commonly associated with sports.

This year the symposium featured a ‘live’ arthroscopic hip operation performed by Mr. Patrick Carton of Whitfield Clinic, a specialist in sports surgery of the hip and groin. The live operation session was streamed to the conference meeting and moderated by Mr. Antonio Andrade, who provided commentary on the procedure and facilitated the interaction between delegates and the surgical team.

The guest speakers were highly regarded as specialists in their fields and included Mr. Antonio Andrade, internationally renowned hip surgeon and host chairman for the International Society for Hip Arthroscopy (ISHA) annual conference 2015; Dr. Alan Byrne, sports physician and medical director for the Football Association of Ireland (FAI); Mr. David Lyons, senior physiotherapist (St. Mary’s Rugby and IRFU) and medical coordinator of Kildare GAA.

The aim of the event was to create awareness and update practitioners of the recent advances in the diagnosis, investigation and management of both acute and chronic injury to the hip and groin.

This is a prominent and common issue within sport with many of the country’s top athletes returning to sport following hip surgery under the care of Mr Patrick Carton including GAA All-Ireland winners Conor McGrath (Clare), Eoin Larkin and Richie Power (Kilkenny) and Ireland soccer international Keith Fahey to name but a few. Players travel from all over Ireland and from aboard to undergo this pioneering hip surgery at Whitfield Clinic.

Mr Carton was delighted with the success of the event, “Over the past ten years we have perfected our hip surgery, performing a keyhole ‘Sports Hip Repair’ which is unique to Whitfield Clinic.  It was fantastic to see so many sports doctors and physiotherapists travelling to Waterford to watch the surgery live; it will give them a much better understanding of what we do and help with rehabilitation of the athletes. The symposium was a great success”

For further information, please visit www.whitfieldclinic.ie 

Whitfield Clinic serves up Fuel for Life

As part of its commitment to patient’s well-being, Whitfield Clinic introduced a Food and Health Initiative which ran in tandem with RTE’s popular health programme Operation Transformation.

For the last two months an Operation Transformation hot meal option was made available each day at the Atrium Café and also on inpatient menus. The meals were developed to provide a similar nutrient profile to the RTE Operation Transformation recipes and clearly labelled to help patients, staff and visitors make a healthier choice.

While nutrition plays a big role at Whitfield Clinic, so does taste and quality menu choices. Good nutrition is especially important to patients because illnesses and their treatment can affect one’s energy levels, ability to recuperate and appetite. Certain treatments can even affect ones’ body's ability to tolerate certain foods and best use of nutrients. 

The Whitfield Clinic catering department’s Nutritionist Charlotte Cummins emphasises the importance of a healthy and nutritionally balanced menu. As patients present themselves at Whitfield Clinic it is essential that the menu offered provides optimum nutrition for people with illnesses and recovery plans. “I nutritionally analyse the operation transformation meals to ensure the nutrient profile is suitable for patients; these meals are low fat, low salt, source of fibre, suitable for vegetarians or made from ingredients containing no gluten to ensure there is something healthy for everyone.”

Whitfield Head chef Romain Bierry outlined his team’s commitment to giving patients a healthy choice.  He said, “Our commitment to patients and visitors is to ensure that we provide them with daily, tasty, fresh and nutrient rich choices.  We work with local producers to ensure market-fresh ingredients in all our recipes. Each morning the kitchen team creates every meal from scratch to ensure that our customers enjoy higher quality food with more taste.”

“We are determined to ensure that all patients at Whitfield are assured of a meal that is fresh, tasty, packed with nutrients and in some ways goes to assisting recuperation.  The Operation Transformation healthy meal options were a resounding success and we intend to continue offering a varied and tasty selection of health options for all our patients.”

The daily menu at Whitfield included Operation Transformation favourites such as Stir Fried Pork with Ginger, Lemon Aioli Marinated Chicken, Chorizo Spiced Haddock and a range of vegetarian options.

 “We are delighted to see that our patients and visitors supported our Food and Health Initiative with almost 70% of patients choosing our Operation Transformation option,” explained Whitfield’s Catering Manager, Alan O’Connor.

“Every day we invest a huge effort into helping our patients and visitors eat right by making the healthy option the easy option. The food on our plates is the result of intensive work and commitment by our dietician, food development team, chefs and local suppliers.”

 If you would like to learn more about Whitfield Clinic’s health food options, offer some suggestions, or if you just want to see what they have for lunch, please contact us on whitfieldclinic@ksg.ie

Whitfield Clinic partners with major health insurers

Mr. David Beirne, CEO Whitfield Clinic

If a venue in the South East stated it had 25,000 through its doors in 2014 you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a tourist attraction. However, this figure represents the number of patients that attended a private and independent hospital in Waterford.

These patients attended Whitfield Clinic for elective procedures, thus avoiding the main stream system, availing of their health insurance and proactively choosing Whitfield. 

This volume of elective work places Whitfield as a major player in healthcare in the South East of Ireland.

Whitfield Clinic, Waterford’s private healthcare facility, now partners with all the major health insurance companies, in order to provide the best level of health care to its patients.

Commenting on the partnership with the main health insurance providers, Mr. David Beirne, CEO, Whitfield Clinic, said, “Since Whitfield Clinic opened in 2006 we have strived to provide the best level of private patient care in the South East region. This standard of quality is endorsed by our CHKS accreditation and ISO 9001:2008 certification. We are the first private hospital in Ireland to achieve this prestigious dual award; it is something we are very proud of.  Our services are growing rapidly and along with 60 consultants, a further 300 medical, surgical and administrative professionals are employed here.”

Whitfield Clinic provides 40 private beds, a 24 bed day surgery unit, four operating theatres, an endoscopy suite and an oncology day ward.  Private health insurance customers can avail of the extensive range of services, all available to view on www.whitfieldclinic.ie.

Mr. Beirne added, “By partnering with the main insurance companies, VHI, Laya, Aviva and GLOHealth, anybody that has private health insurance can benefit from Whitfield’s resources to ensure their hospital experience is as comfortable as possible.”

“As all procedures carried out at Whitfield are elective, this reduces the waiting time to as little as one week for most procedures and an average inpatient stay of two or three nights.”

“Patients get invaluable peace of mind knowing exactly when they will be seen and when their procedure will be undertaken.  More often than not, it is this uncertainty that causes undue stress and anxiety to anyone who is unwell. That’s why by choosing Whitfield that uncertainty is alleviated.”

Whitfield Clinic also provides a wide range of diagnostic and support provisions including MRI, Ultrasound, X-Ray and CT, with almost 1,100 patients availing of these services last December alone.

To find out more about Whitfield Clinic and the Whitfield Radiotherapy and Cancer Treatment Centre, visit www.whitfieldclinic.ie or call 051 – 337400.