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CATHERINE W GICHUKI
DOHA
THE Ministry of Public Health's (MoPH) Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department is working on an array of programmes addressing patient safety which will be implemented soon in Qatar.
The projects, to be adopted by the entire healthcare sector in Qatar, will be used to provide guidance to the healthcare practitioners in the country while the entire industry will adopt policies and procedures supporting the programmes.
The programmes in the pipeline include the National Quality Policy, the National Patient Safety Framework, the National Action Plan to Combat Anti-Microbial Resistance and the National Infection Prevention and Control Programme.
This was revealed by the Acting Director of Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department at MoPH Huda Amer al Katheeri on the sidelines of the Third Qatar Patient Safety Week, which kicked off in Doha on Sunday.
The event was attended by the Minister of Public Health HE Dr Hanan Mohammed al Kuwari.
Katheeri said:"The programmes, like our other programmes, will cover the entire healthcare industry in Qatar including public, private and semi-governmental."
According to her, the programmes that are already running, include the National Clinical Practice Guidelines, which aims at standardising care in accordance with the best evidence-based practices and the Health Service Performance Agreements, where the primary, secondary and the tertiary healthcare services in the government, semi-government and private sectors regularly report quality and safety indicators at the national level.
She said that the department also carries out awareness campaigns that shed light on different aspects of patient safety such as the Hand Hygiene Week and Anti-microbial Resistance Week.
Katheeri also highlighted in this regard the Patient Safety Friendly Hospital, an initiative by World Health Organisation Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean which was piloted in 2014 and implemented in two hospitals this year.
Talking about patient safety in Qatar, Katheeri said,"The objective behind these programmes is to ensure that all those patients,who visit healthcare facilities in Qatar, leave the facilities with improved health."
She added that in Qatar patient safety is not a challenge confined to healthcare sector and therefore greater awareness is needed in other sectors also to address the issue.
Moreover, she said that many activities will be taking place as part of the Third Qatar Patient Safety Week, which includes an awareness event at Qatar University College of Health Sciences on Monday, visits by a team of the Primary Health Care Corporation (PHCC) and Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) to health centres on Tuesday and an event to be organised in association with Sidra at Aspetar on Wednesday.
A week-long awareness campaign for patient safety will run at the health centres.
On Thursday, an event will take place at the Ministry of Public Health followed by an exhibition. Furthermore, public campaigns will take place at Villaggio Mall on Friday and Saturday.
Another keynote speaker at the event was the President of US National Academy of Medicine Dr Victor J Dzau who spoke on 'Improving Quality and Safety: The Power of Leadership and Organisational Culture'.
