JEDDAH, 12 October 2004 — Jeddah’s International Medical Center (IMC) hosted a live, teleconference last week with its partner, The Cleveland Clinic Foundation (CCF). The topic was “Leadership Development.”
The Jeddah conference was held at the Westin Hotel with several dozen participants including executives of major institutions, physicians and academics on Thursday.
The Cleveland Clinic, a world leader in health care and an equity holder in the International Medical Center, holds an annual conference for its employees and affiliates. This was the first time that the CCF conference had been connected live to Saudi Arabia, directly broadcast to IMC’s executive leadership, board of directors, investors and other interested parties and associates. The strategic objective was to develop leadership skills in order to manage external changes in health care and internal changes in leadership.
The conference opened with Dr. Walid Fitaihi, IMC’s CEO and chairman of the board of directors, making opening remarks about IMC’s current status and its future goals. Dr. Wael Kaawach, a member of the board of directors and chairman of the surgery department, spoke about IMC’s partnership with CCF. Following these and a brief question and answer session with audience members, transmission between CCF and IMC began. The event kicked off with an opening speech by Dr. Delos M. Cosgrove, CEO of the Cleveland Clinic Foundation.
The day-long conference included numerous presentations by health care and management professionals on topics such as “Managing Change in Health Care”, “Changing Demographics of the Workforce”, “Changing Economics Impacting Health Care”, and “Managing Internal Forces of Change.”
On Wednesday, the IMC held its quarterly board of directors meeting followed by an official site tour at which Dr. Mehdi Razavi, a cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic, was present. He was impressed with the growth and success of the IMC project. IMC is a 300-bed private hospital with several specialty units currently under construction in Jeddah and is due for completion in mid-2005.
