St. Luke's Medical Center (SLMC) ensured patients of a smart-ready hospital in Aseana City in Parañaque which will be equipped with digital technologies and house several specialty centers.

SLMC President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Dennis Serrano on Thursday said the new hospital is expected to be opened in 2030, a year later than his initial projection partly due to redesigning of structures and expansion plans for specialty centers.

SLMC expects to break ground for the Aseana hospital in the latter part of the year or in early 2026.

"The cause for the delay was our need for smart readiness. We had to go back to the schematic design of the hospital, thinking of what we really need," he said Thursday in a meeting with the media at St. Luke's Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

Serrano said the redesign for the Aseana-based hospital came to mind after visiting smart hospitals in multiple countries and territories, including South Korea, Germany, Japan, and Hong Kong.

"We have consultants from the US that tell us this is the trend. We have to make projections on what healthcare will be like in 2030," he added.

Serrano said patients in the Aseana hospital will be digitally connected, resulting in faster but high-quality medical services which include patient monitoring or emergency response.

"From the time you board the ambulance, all vitals are being monitored already at the hospital so we'll know what to prepare in the emergency room," he shared.

"All laboratory tests are also automated and monitoring of patients is centralized. Our doctors can see how 15 to 20 patients are doing in their rooms based on their vitals monitoring at the nurse stations," Serrano continued.

Specialty centers

Serrano said the new hospital will cater to patients with conditions beyond those related to cardiology and cancer in addressing the country's need for comprehensive tertiary healthcare.

"Unfortunately for the country, we have many hospitals but those with tertiary healthcare are few," Serrano said.

"We did a survey of tertiary healthcare and realized the need is really greater than cardiac and cancer. There will be patients that do not have cardiac or orthopedic conditions whom we need to take care of. We had to pivot," he added.

As part of cancer medicine, Serrano added that SLMC will be introducing a genetics service "very soon."

"We're building a genetics service that will look at you as a well person and tell you this is what your genes are telling us," Serrano said.