Although a private hospital, Theptarin’s goal is not to maximize profit. Their business intention is to survive and be financially strong enough to do good for the society, in the area of their specialties. 

Theptarin’s specialized care and treatment in diabetes, thyroid, and lifestyle for disease prevention, stemmed from their own experience.  Lessons learned are extracted and disseminated to medical personnel throughout the country.  This is how Theptarin, a small private hospital, can have impact on the development of health care in all of Thailand.

Diabetes Team Care Model

Thailand’s first diabetes team was formed at Theptarin. It was tough as diabetes team was unknown and there was no interest in education for self-care. Today, team care approach is fully accepted by both health care providers and recipients. 

Education through Activities Model

Experience taught them that classroom teaching alone does not translate to changes in behaviors that will lead to better control of diabetes. Theptarin thus started “3Cs” model: Class, Camp, Club.  During 2006-2008, Theptarin shared their experience in running the 3Cs model with focus on diabetes camp to more than 1,000 health care personnel from all over Thailand.  Diabetes patients around Thailand today can receive diabetes education through activities.

Service
When Theptarin first opened as the “Theptarin Diabetes and Endocrine Center,” they were only a medium-size clinic operating from 2pm-8pm with 8 in-patient beds.   diabetes team started with one doctor, a nurse, and a dietitian, working in a 4-storey building.

In 1992, Theptarin expanded into a full-scale hospital with 80 in-patient beds in an 11-storey building. They now have complete facilities ready to provide comprehensive care including 24-hour emergency service, operating theaters, labor rooms, hemodialysis units, and dental units. Their medical team has grown tremendously to include specialists in all areas.  The diabetes team has also grown many-fold. They have recruited internists and endocrinologists into their team, and together they provide in-house training to diabetes educators and dietitians, as the latter two professions are relatively unknown here and there is no formal training in Thailand.

This expansion enabled them to serve their clients and the surrounding community with more comprehensive and better care.  Facilities and medical equipment provide clients with more comfort and convenience, and give physicians information that is more detailed and accuracy, enabling more timely diagnosis and more treatment options.

Theptarin closely follows medical developments and has pioneered a number of services in Thailand.  The first peripheral distal bypass surgery in Thailand was performed by their diabetes team in 1993. They brought to medical community’s and public’s attention to the importance of foot care, and opened Thailand’s first “Foot Clinic” in 1999.  They introduced to diabetes care in Thailand several wound care techniques and technology such as hyperbaric medicine, felted-foam dressing, total-contact cast, and protective footwear.  For treating thyroid disorders, Theptarin is the first private hospital in Thailand to perform fine needle aspiration to assist in diagnosis and alcohol injection for treatment.

Education
Theptarin believes that education is a very important success key to best healthcare service.  Twenty years ago, education was not seen by patients as necessary but rather as a waste of time and money.  Theptarin went against the mainstream and forced their patients to learn about diabetes and self-care.  At the beginning, all education was given individually, as they were unable to convince patients to come for group teaching.  It took 6 years before they could launch their first diabetes class.

Research
Theptarin believes that research is vital in order to give the best service. They must keep themselves up-to-date. They constantly follow research findings and medical development, and seek for opportunities to apply the knowledge to their service.  For internal knowledge sharing, their medical staffs meet regularly for interesting case discussions and for journal club activities. Often staffs from medical schools participate in their academic meetings.

With a large number of diabetes and thyroid patients in hand, Theptarin participates in several national studies on such topics related to these disorders.  Theptarin is the only institution that is not a medical school to have hosted the Thailand’s Endocrine Interhospital Conference.  In 2013, Research Unit was formally established and Theptarin started to gain much visibility in academic conferences worldwide through poster and oral presentations as well as publications in internationally-accepted medical journals.

Social Responsibility
Their goal is not only to serve their clients, but also the Thai population at large. They believe that the best way to expand their service throughout the country is to work on personnel and organizational development, and so that is where they allocate much of their resources and energy.

It took 20 years in building and strengthening their own diabetes team.  Today, the team is strong and recognized throughout Thailand and neighboring countries. They are now ready to share their experience and support others to build their teams.  When the number of strong diabetes teams multiply, the number of patients who will receive the type of care Theptarin team provides will multiply by a much larger magnitude.

Assisting others in personnel training not only benefits others, but also forces the Theptarin team to continuously move forward. Their staffs are often invited to speak at various training courses, and many of them are adjunct lecturers at several universities. They work closely with the government such National Health Security Office and Ministry of Public Health in diabetes care capacity building especially in foot care. They worked with several pharmaceutical and medical device companies in training diabetes educators and nutrition trainings.  A large number of nutrition, pharmacy, medical technology, and physical therapy students complete their internship at Theptarin.

The scope of their work on personnel training is beyond Thailand as a number of Indonesian endocrinologists spent their 1-month rotations.  Theptarin is also appointed as an excellence center by World Diabetes Foundation responsible for training medical personnel from all over the world since 2011.

The above are only examples of personnel training work done by Theptarin’s team.  In order to drive and develop diabetes teamwork throughout the country, it is very important that medical professionals keep networking.  Thus, in 1998, Dr.Himathongkam founded the Thai Society of Diabetes Educators to draw together all professions working with diabetes patients.