Samsung Medical Center - South Korea

Samsung Medical Center (SMC) is recognized for its outstanding contribution in bringing Korean medicine in line with the best on a global level. Despite its short history (it opened in 1994), the excellence of its medical expertise, shift from a hospital-oriented paradigm to a patient-oriented one and use of cutting-edge technology have propelled it to the forefront of patient treatment and care.


As a tertiary medical center, SMC has built an advanced treatment infrastructure which includes excellent medical staff, a mobile hospital system and a helicopter dedicated for its emergency medical service. With the motto of "Patient-oriented hospital" SMC contains 1,951 beds, specialized centers including the Cancer Center, more than 110 special clinics, and around 6,500 staff (more than 1,200 medical doctors and 2000 nurses). Indeed, since its foundation it has played a leading role in launching such diverse medical services as its treatment reservation system and online medical information service. In this way, SMC has become an advanced and successful model of a patient-oriented hospital in Korea.

Ranked top in diverse customer satisfaction survey every year, SMC has been recognized as the hospital that provides truly patient-oriented medical services. In the 2007 General Hospital Evaluation of the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Family Affairs announced in May 2008, SMC was the only hospital, among the 86 general hospitals, to receive an A grade in all evaluated areas. Thus, official confirmation that SMC was the best hospital in the country in all areas, including quality of medical and patient services, was officially confirmed in name and in deed.
 
Moreover, its role as a training institute for Sungkyunkwan Medical College makes it an ideal breeding ground for medical students; and it is announcing great research achievements in such diverse medical areas as clinical testing.

In response to the increasing demand for the specialized treatment of cancer in Korea, SMC constructed the Samsung Cancer Center in its complex and the center opened to the public in Jan. 2008. The expectations that Samsung Cancer Center would provide an advanced level of cancer treatment were extremely high in many diverse sectors. With SMC`s introduction of its new patient-oriented medical services (through a collaborative medical system involving specialized treatment teams instead of the existing department-oriented treatment systems), diverse sectors put high expectations on SMC that people will be able to get advanced cancer treatment in Korea.
Developed into the best medical center in three core areas - treatment, research and training, SMC has taken another step forward realizing its great dream of becoming not only an Asian hub, but a global and top-class medical center as the flagship hospital of Korea in the 21st century by becoming a 2,000-bed hospital with the opening of Samsung Cancer Center.