September the 16th, 2023 – The largest Croatian private hospital, Akromion, officially opened its doors recently.
As Poslovni Dnevnik/Marija Crnjak writes, not even two years have passed since the construction of the new Special Hospital for Orthopedics and Traumatology, Akromion, was announced. The largest Croatian private hospital has now opened its doors in a new facility in Dugave in Zagreb.
The grand opening of the new Akromion was held on Thursday with as many as 600 guests in attendance. This is otherwise the first of Zagreb’s hospitals to be located on the southern bank of the Sava River, and is the largest Croatian private hospital to date. It will start operating on the first Monday in October, Professor Nikola Čičak, the investor and director of Akromion, revealed.
The largest Croatian private hospital doesn’t have a contract with the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO)
In the coming days, Akromion’s activities will be completely moved to the new building from their current facility in Krapinske Toplice. Activities will also be moved there from their Zagreb Polyclinic located on Vrbanićeva. It will also be expanded with even more new medical services and facilities. The new private hospital spans more than 8,000 square metres, on land covering about 9,500 square metres, on which there is a car park for patients and guests. There’s also a nearby park belonging to the new healthcare facility.
The largest Croatian private hospital was designed by Sanela Bogdanović from the Second Format office, and the contractor was Kamgrad, who managed to complete everything within the planned time frame. Only one calendar year passed from the beginning of the works to their total completion.
The use of green technologies
“We designed the project together with the facility’s employees, and it’s fully adapted to the needs of the sector and the rules of the medical profession, which we respected as much as possible. We made sure to use of green technologies. The goal of such a design is to obtain a space in which there’s no unnecessary movement and wandering around of patients. We also wanted too separate clean and unclean as much as is possible, in order to prevent hospital-borne infections, even though we’re already known for an extremely low infection rate of a mere 0.5 percent. We have ended up getting an extremely functional space with the most modern equipment in the building, in which we also installed technology that uses renewable energy sources, which according to the first estimates will save us a quarter of the energy we currently consume”, explained Nikola Čičak, who invested a total of 27 million euros in the largest Croatian private hospital.
The hospital covers five floors, in the basement there is a garage for employees and a part of the engine room, and on the fourth floor sits an engine room and a solar power plant.
The hospital uses water-to-water heat pumps for heating and cooling, using water from two wells at a depth of 40 metres from which they draw groundwater. Between them are the medical part and the administration. The new Akromion has been expanded from three to four operating rooms, has increased its capacities from 18 hospital beds to 51, and the activity of physical therapy has been significantly expanded. That means that patients will be able to stay there after having surgery for their rehabilitation, instead of needing to be sent elsewhere.
Čičak also announced the expansion of the facility’s activities related to oncology in orthopedics, which is normally poorly integrated within the hospital system. Cooperation with the Croatian Health Insurance Fund (HZZO) would also be useful in this regard, as it’s typically an expensive and long-term form of treatment, noted Čičak. Akromion still doesn’t have a contract with the state’s health insurer.
Additional facilities
Single and double rooms with bathrooms, apartments with separate bedrooms, as well as three separate apartments that function as hotel accommodation, will all be available to inpatient patients. The new hospital has a professional kitchen in case it is needed, and Catering Kvatrić will be in charge of the food. In addition to the usual spaces for living and working, Akromion’s staff will also have a small gym at their disposal, and residents will also get rooms, which is unusual for Croatian hospitals. The largest Croatian private hospital also boasts conference facilities, a smaller and larger hall, as well as outdoor terraces for both patients and employees. Akromion currently has 100 employees, of which 18 are doctors and 36 are nurses, and the new hospital will have around 120 employees in total, with new hires currently underway.
