|Introduction|   |Vision & Mission| |Services Offerred|

Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital (JDWNRH) the apex institution of Bhutan in delivering health care services in the country. It was established in 1972 as a General Hospital which was extended in 1994 with opening out of new services. It was then named as Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital, in honour of the third Druk Gyalpo His late Majesty Jigme Dorji Wangchuck.

The hospital caters to the population of Thimphu Dzongkhag and also the non-referred patients from neighboring Dzongkhags and referred cases from the 20 Dzongkhag hospitals. The hospital has tried to build its strength around providing a wide range of almost 20 different specialty services. The hospital not only functions as the National referral hospital for the entire country but also functions as:

· Regional referral hospital for the western Dzongkhags.

· District hospital for Thimphu Dzongkhag.

· Human resources pool and technical backup for Dzongkhag hospitals.

· Clinical training centre for the Royal Institute of Health Sciences (RIHS).

·Technical support to the Public Health Programmes

Over the years the number of patients attending JDWNRH has considerably increased probably due to the following reasons; greater health awareness among the general population, better accessibility due to improved transport communication, actual increase in the population and also due to increase services at JDWNRH. This has also led to increase in referral from Dzongkhag hospitals as well as referral to higher centers out side Bhutan.

In order to address some of the referral needs, telemedicine has been introduced, with connectivity with the remote BHUs within the country as well as with higher centers in India.

Managing the multidisciplinary nature of modern clinical care has also become increasingly complex due to triple burden of diseases (communicable disease, non-communicable diseases, and new and reemerging diseases), changes in pattern of morbidity, advances in medical technology, and requirement of new services.

In order to improve patient management and to reduce waiting time Health Information System will be introduced and more counters will be opened for laboratory sample and drug dispensing. Laboratory information system has been functional since 2008 which makes the report available in a shorter time.

Filter clinics will be set up to manage common ailments with the view to reduce workload on the specialists. Recently, GDMOs and ACOs are assigned to some of the heavily crowded departments to assist the specialists. A separate casualty ward has been created to cater to emergencies, thereby reducing the load on the wards and ACO has been posted after working hours to cater to non-emergency patients.