King Abdulaziz Hospital-Al Ahsa celebrated the World Quality Day by organizing specialized lectures, exhibitions, awareness corners, research competition, a flu vaccine campaign, hand hygiene activities, and safety corner with the presence of a number of administrative, technical, nursing and medical staff.
Dr. Ahmad Al Arfaj, the Regional Executive Director of the Ministry of National Guard -Health Affairs in the Eastern Region pointed out that: “celebrating the World Quality Day confirms the importance of applying quality which positively reflects the provided medical services, as we are keen to keep quality as one of our top priorities to ensure providing the best patient care which is our main concern”.
Moreover, the celebration included holding several quality specialized lectures presented by specialized staff membersin this field from various departments. General Director of Quality in MNG-HA, Dr. Ahmad Alamri said that: ”such activities are held to clarify the major role of quality in achieving the organization’s goals which are based on providing the optimal medical services”.
He also added that: ” King Abdulaziz Hospital received first place award in the Assessment of Safety Culture Program in the field of promoting safety awareness. In addition, Dr. Alamri discussed in his paper “ the importance of quality and patient safety” and was admired by the attendees.
In addition, Dr. Alamri pointed out that” there are interactive projects within the hospitals of National Guard, thus if one of these hospitals sets a project to improve the quality, such project will be shared across all regions for a learning and a beneficial experience.
Moreover, Quality and Patient Safety Manager in King Abdulaziz Hospital, Dr. Sarah Almotairi, said that one of the presented papers was about discussing a main point which is patient safety issues as well as how to change the quality concept ever since it was known untillt he present day, as it’s considered a requirement now, and not just a luxury.
She also added that” a plan to improve quality and patient safety in King Abdulaziz Hospital was within the presented work papers, as it was presented theoretically then applied practically. Also, another paper was presented entitled How to Introduce our Responsibilities as Management and Medical Staff to the Patients Through Quality and Patient Safety”.
On the other hand, she stressed that” the participants attended many lectures on how to improv performance indicators to support evidence based quality , justice culture between education and liability through thedifferentiation between the medical errors occurred due to negligence, human error or accidental errors, and making sure that such error will happen no more.”.
Furthermore, Dr. Almotairi added that a number of work papers were presented including the supervision program over antibiotics and its misuses within the MNG-HA hospitals, how to reduce bacterial clinical resistance for some common antibiotics, how to reduce costs, strategies of reducing the nurse, pharmacist or physician errors when prescribing the medicine .
Last but not least, the lectures also covered the mechanism of applying and improving quality in research centers.