The North Estonia Medical Centre (NEMC) is the largest hospital in the country and is benefiting from the construction and renovation of its buildings, ensuring it can provide safety for patients and personnel, as well as a comfortable, home-like environment for generations to come.
- 22 August 2011
Projects such as this are helping the EU to become a smart, sustainable and inclusive economy by 2020, as set out in the EU 2020 growth strategy. The EU is facing some tough challenges, including an ageing population, an insufficiently qualified workforce, the need for greater innovation, striking a balance between economic growth and environmental degradation, and ensuring secure, clean energy supplies. Regional policy projects across the EU are playing an active role in dealing with these and many other challenges, by undertaking projects designed to generate employment, raise educational achievement, develop renewable energy sources, boost productivity and give all citizens access to opportunities. The projects and the regions play a pivotal role in this, as they generate real results that contribute to achieving the strategy’s key goals.
The new facilities and equipment are expected to shorten the average length of stay in hospital and decrease mortality from cancer by 129 lives per year and from myocardial infarction by 98 lives per year by 2027.
Pulling resources together
NEMC is located in Tallinn and is the largest hospital in Estonia. It caters to the medical needs of some 800 000 people (60% of Estonia’s population) across nine counties. In addition to providing care, the hospital is also a major research institution, partnering up with several universities and medical research centres.
Until recently, the centre had been located in rundown buildings scattered around the city. The construction work of the new buildings (38 584 m2) and renovation of existing buildings (20 277 m2) serve to bring resources together and optimise services offered, at the same time making NEMC a more attractive place for education and scientific research.
Efficient, quality treatment
The anticipated benefits of the upgraded centre include a more efficient use of facilities, personnel and financial resources by centralising the majority of acute hospital activities, a 17-20% increase in oncology, haematology and cardiology services by 2015, higher treatment quality by ensuring faster diagnosis and faster/improved treatment through more surgery, radiology, nuclear medicine, radio therapy and invasive cardiology.
Early detection, a life-saver
For citizens, the project offers potential life-saving benefits. With greater accessibility and quality of medical treatment, treatable diseases will be detected earlier, there will be better access to life-saving technologies, mortality rates (especially in cancer and cardiovascular disease treatment) should fall, and the average length of stay in hospital should decrease by 0.7 days (or 10% – 2008 vs. 2015).