ALTY Orthopaedic Hospital (ALTY), one of Malaysia’s first and only full-fledged orthopaedic hospitals has been placing their focus on the mission of raising awareness of the importance of orthopaedics and bone health among the Malaysian public.
According to ALTY’s Executive Director Mr Anwar Anis, there has unfortunately been a lack of awareness and knowledge in the orthopaedic sector among the general public compared to other forms of illnesses such as cardiothoracic and cancers. He believes that Malaysians tend to wait and bear with the pain instead of acting fast due to this current lack of understanding. This inaction would then lead to a growth in a less mobile, ageing society that is dependent on the aid of others to carry out daily life tasks. This leads back to ALTY’s mission of increasing awareness to encourage a good quality of life and independent self-mobility.
ALTY additionally separates themselves from other orthopaedic service providers by being a single-specialty hospital. This means that patients benefit from having their caretakers be experts geared towards the field of orthopaedics; From the nurses, doctors and even the type of OR tables that are used. An example of this would be that ALTY provides patients with a joint navigator who guides the patient throughout their entire process at ALTY from pre-op to post-op to address any concerns that they may have as the surgeons would not have sufficient time to guide the patients' step by step.
As a single-speciality hospital, ALTY also has the opportunity to invest in technology and imaging that is specifically catered towards orthopaedics. ALTY is proud to be home to two incredible pieces of technology that are the first of their kind in Malaysia. Firstly, ALTY has an Open Weight-Bearing MRI. This machine is able to tilt to a standing position to record the patient’s physiological changes that help doctors diagnose mobility issues and musculoskeletal pathologies that are otherwise not visible on a conventional MRI. The second machine is the EOS Imaging Machine which collects precise 2D and 3D measurements that allow better visualisation of the spine, hips and knees, enhancing patient treatments and accurate diagnoses.
In their mission to spread awareness of bone health, ALTY has chosen to collaborate with Viatris, a recently established pharmaceutical company in Malaysia. Viatris has a presence in over 165 countries and has broad therapy areas that include Cardiovascular, Pain, CNS, and Men’s Health to name a few. Equally important, Viatris has also established good relationships with community pharmacies in Malaysia.
This relationship has proven to be highly beneficial in spreading the message of bone health importance as well as helping ALTY to connect with the community at large. According to Jeff Bote, Country Manager of Viatris Malaysia, there is a low level of health literacy in Malaysia.
This is why Viatris takes an active role in being a part of the health community to provide knowledge and information to all. Viatris achieves this by sharing health-related tips and information across their social media platforms such as their Facebook page called Viatris Health Malaysia and on their comprehensive health website, MyHealthMyLife in support of Viatris’ mission of empowering people worldwide to live healthier at every stage of life.
The collaboration between ALTY and Viatris first began back in June 2022. ALTY and Viatris joined together to reach out to the community in conjunction with Scoliosis Awareness Month and received a very encouraging public response. This was done to encourage proper screening and to determine improvement areas for the individual’s current posture.
This thus led to a fruitful partnership whereby Viatris brings forth their connections with the community and ALTY brings to the table their speciality and technical knowledge but most importantly, they both share the same mindset and goal of bringing forth awareness to the public on the importance of receiving early screenings and proper accurate diagnoses.
The campaign which was the first of several collaborations between both parties involved public posture screenings across several locations in the Klang Valley and successfully screened over 250 people.
Furthermore, both ALTY and Viatris have felt that there has been a lack of specific campaigns in the field of orthopaedics and bone health. Thus, they have dubbed the month of October as Ortho-ber. This would be in relation to another campaign of theirs which is the ALTY-Mate Bone Care campaign which embraces the idea of utilizing October for programmes such as Public Awareness Talks, Sharing Sessions as well as events to reach out to different segments of the community such as the general public, primary care physicians, specialists and corporates.
With the assistance of Viatris through Caring Pharmacy, ALTY continued its public posture screenings beyond the borders of Klang Valley and into Johor Bahru. They will soon be expanding their public screenings to Ipoh and Penang in December.
In addition to the ALTY-Mate Bone Care campaign, another collaboration was the #Sports4All Campaign. This campaign saw ALTY and Viatris partnering with the Malaysian Blind Football team to emphasise that anyone can take part in sports regardless of their disabilities. This campaign also further promotes the importance of being fit & healthy, the benefits of regular exercise, and the accessibility of treatments & solutions for sports injuries. Besides working with the Malaysian Blind Football team, there have also been efforts to partner with other underserved sports communities such as the women’s rugby team, veterans and senior citizens. The plan is to expand the campaign to different communities and different sports within the next year.
For more information on ALTY, Viatris, and their collaborative campaigns, click below:
ALTY Website, ALTY Facebook, ALTY Instagram & Viatris Website
This content is provided by ALTY Orthopaedic Hospital.
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