Carlos Aranda: "Building the fourth most sustainable hospital in the world has been a great challenge"
On the occasion of the opening of the Fraternidad-Muprespa Habana Hospital, we compiled on our website interviews with our managers in various media. Interview with Carlos Aranda, Managing Director of Fraternidad-Muprespa. Back cover of El Economista, April 3, 2019.
Fraternidad-Muprespa, Mutual Collaborator with Social Security, has a birthday. And to celebrate its 90th anniversary, on Monday, April 8, it will see one of its great projects come true, its new Hospital on Paseo de la Habana in Madrid, the fourth most sustainable medical center in the world. Its general director, Carlos Aranda, reflected the pride of the entity in seeing this challenge accomplished.
What does this new Hospital mean for Fraternidad-Muprespa?
This Hospital is going to help us be better. Ten years ago we needed to take a leap in quality and we have achieved it. Building the fourth most sustainable Hospital in the world has been a great challenge and, of course, we are very proud. Everything is perfectly designed for the patient: the spaces, the equipment, the internal circuits... In recent months, we have also incorporated more talent in order to offer each patient the best solution.
What would you point out as most notable about the Hospital?
I would highlight an excellent functional design, designed to optimize the work of professionals and comfortable transit for patients. Also incorporating the latest technology on the market, in areas as specialized as imaging diagnosis, the block of three integrated operating rooms or trauma consultations. All patient care processes are digitalized to improve the work of professionals and to extend the Hospital's borders beyond the center. And finally, perhaps the most spectacular, the building itself.
What is special about the building?
The design and construction of the building have followed the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) standard, the most important sustainable building certification system in the world. We have logically opted for the LEED Healthcare scheme, as it is a health center and, not only have we managed to obtain the certification, but the one awarded has been the Platinum level, the highest. This is an international milestone in the construction of sustainable healthcare buildings, since today only three healthcare centers in the world, in the United States, Turkey and Taiwan, hold such a classification. We are the first hospital to achieve this in Europe.
Ten years ago we needed to take a leap in quality and we have achieved it. Everything is perfectly designed for the patient: the spaces, the equipment and the internal circuits
What does it mean to have LEED Healthcare Platinum certification?
The LEED standard, in addition to environmental sustainability, has an immediate effect on the comfort of patients and their families, since LEED is not limited, by any means, to the parameters of energy, water or waste savings, but gives crucial importance to the comfort and environmental quality that the occupants of the building will feel, both patients and family members as well as healthcare professionals. For example, LEED requires indoor environmental quality that guarantees the habitable conditions of the building, control of temperature and humidity conditions, acoustic insulation, and elimination of volatile organic components.
What are the challenges that Mutual Insurance Companies and the sector in general have to face?
I would summarize them in four great challenges. The first is absenteeism, which is a problem we have as a country. Thirty-three out of every thousand Social Security affiliates missed their jobs every day in 2018 due to temporary disability. This represents a very high cost to the system and to companies, and the figure will worsen because the active population is aging.The second is to take advantage of synergies between mutual societies to offer a better and more appropriate service to each worker who needs us. To achieve this, mutual insurance companies are changing the way we contract health services. We are also obliged to take advantage of technology in our most relevant processes. Finally, we must continue to offer excellent service to workers who suffer sick leave, the key to our work.
Why the bad press that mutual insurance companies have?
I think it is related to the lack of knowledge about the sector. Mutual insurance companies are entities collaborating with Social Security and, therefore, non-profit entities that manage public funds. The care we offer to our patients is excellent but we are rigorous with the duration of the disability processes. The satisfaction rate of our patients at What we manage to save at the end of the year goes to the Social Security fund to, among other things, pay pensions. Our activity is rigorously regulated and audited annually by public bodies. We are serious and very responsible entities.
What has characterized the mutual insurance sector since the end of the economic crisis?
The erosion of the income statements continues due to the sustained increase in sick leave due to common contingencies, as I mentioned previously. And consequently, this requires an improvement in the management of the majority of entities in the sector. It forces all mutual insurance companies to add extra effort to our activity. At Fraternidad-Muprespa we try to reinvent ourselves, we have been doing so for our ninety years of life, always within legal limits. We have been promoting digitalization for twenty years, implementing new management models and having increasingly more and better trained professionals.
Is this the origin of the collaboration agreements recently signed by mutual societies?
Indeed, these agreements such as +compromiso, an alliance of mutual companies, signed by All of this cannot but result in improving the quality of the services we offer to mutual members and in managing Social Security funds more effectively and efficiently.
