Download PDF - International SOS

FIRST ALARM CENTER
oxygen tanks locally, and went to the airport
to check in patients ahead of repatriation.”
Pioneering evacuations
Modern aviation has made the medical
transportation of patients faster and less
stressful. Roger Farrow continues: “I
remember in 1988 we completed a
pioneering evacuation of an extremely sick
patient by air ambulance from Singapore to a
hospital in London. This was before the
advent of the non-stop long haul 747 400
aircraft and when there were few air
ambulance aircraft available. We used a Lear
36 to make the transcontinental flight,
stopping at Madras, Abu Dhabi and then
Lanaka in Cyprus before finally landing at
Heathrow. Stopping in the middle of the
night, while the aircraft was being refueled
needed careful planning. With little of the
SERVING INTERNATIONAL SOS’S
JAPANESE CLIENTS AND MEMBERS
INTERNATIONAL SOS delivers services
specifically designed and tailored for its
Japanese clients and members.
Lisa Tan joined International SOS in 1988.
She spent two years setting up and
upgrading International SOS's alarm center
operations in Seoul and Hong Kong. In 1991
she returned to the Singapore alarm center
as Operations Manager. She remembers how
the International SOS Japanese Desk first
came about.
"Our Japanese clients and members have
always been important to us. They were the
first clients in Asia willing to invest in our
services despite medical assistance being
almost unknown in this region in the late
1980's", she explains. "Both AIU Insurance
Company and former Mitsui Marine & Fire
Insurance Company, now known as Mitsui
Sumitomo Insurance Company, were the first
Japanese insurance companies to show a
keen interest in including medical services
to give added value to their insurance
products. Both companies have grown to
become key clients and our business
partners in many ways.
"In 1992 we reached another milestone
when Tokio Marine chose us as their
appointed assistance company for Asia
Pacific. Before choosing International SOS,
Tokio Marine sent teams to Singapore,
“The soul of the
company, its
humanity and
compassion, have
been preserved”
ROGER FARROW, INTERNATIONAL SOS
Jakarta, Hong Kong and Brisbane to audit our
operations. We were able to demonstrate our
consistency of approach. More importantly,
we demonstrated our understanding of Asia
and the Japanese market, and showed
intimate local and cultural knowledge. The
key win for us was our geographically
balanced network, which met the
expectations and requirements of Tokio
Marine in Asia Pacific at that time. Today, we
provide services to Tokio Marine on a global
basis.
"In 1993, we set up the Japanese desk at
the Singapore alarm center, dealing
exclusively with assistance to our Japanese
clients and members. This was the start of
the fully-fledged Japanese service department
that has continued till this day in Tokyo,
serving more than 90% of Japanese non-life
insurers and all our global members from
Japan.
"International SOS has always believed in
the importance of providing services to
customers in their own language and in
accordance with their own customs and
traditions, even when they're overseas. The
attention to detail and commitment we
demonstrated to our Japanese clients in the
early days is still fundamental to the service
we offer today, even though we have grown
such a lot in the past 20 years."
sophisticated medical equipment available
today, we had to take the utmost care to
monitor the patient to make sure he remained
stable through each stage of the flight.”
On another occasion, a Singaporean boy
had to be flown back urgently from Kota
Kinabalu, where the airport was already
closed. Dr Pascal Rey-Herme asked Lisa Tan,
who was the only Malaysian in the company
at that time, to talk to the Malaysian
authorities to convince them to open the
airport especially for the mercy flight. The
airport authorities readily agreed to do so
once the urgency of the situation was
explained.
Soul of the company
The years since have seen the rapid growth
of International SOS, with hundreds of new
staff joining and new alarm centers and
clinics opening throughout the world. This
might have meant a lot of change –
particularly for longer-serving members of
the team. Dr Farrow doesn’t agree. “Yes,
today’s alarm centers are incredibly efficient
operations, with systems and technology that
we wouldn’t have recognized even 10 years
ago. But the heart of what we do is the same.
The soul of the company, its humanity and
compassion, have been preserved.
“I always liken Pascal and Arnaud to the
queen bee in a bee hive. Just as the queen
bee affects and directs the behavior of the
whole hive, so in the same way Pascal and
Arnaud’s strong medical and personal ethics
and their passion for excellence have shaped
this company and the people who work in it.
I’ve been strongly influenced by them both
since the day I first met them. And in turn
those longer serving members of the
company are passing onto those who joined
later, the same values and standards.
A hands-on approach
“What is so important and so unusual for a
large company like ours, is that Pascal and
Arnaud are still directly involved in medical
and operational decision making. There is no
serious medical case which senior
management are unaware of. What we all
value – and the reason so many of us stay
with International SOS – is the opportunity
to work for a compassionate, medically
driven, ethical company.
“In another 20 years we’ll probably look
back at 2005 and say that what we’re doing
now was pioneering. It’s all a question of
perspective. But it is extraordinary to see
just how far we’ve come in such a relatively
short time.” ■
HOTLINE - ANNIVERSARY EDITION 15