Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of everyone at IHI and our partners at Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), I’m delighted to welcome you to this year’s Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare. HMC continues to lead the way in spreading innovations and proven approaches that can significantly improve the safety and quality of the care delivered throughout the region. And this Forum is a crucial opportunity for everyone working to improve health and health care in the Middle East to network, share, and learn together.

The challenges in front of all of us trying to achieve the Triple Aim – better care, better health, lower costs – are shared. Demographic shifts and the increasing burden of chronic disease are putting pressure on our health systems at every level. So sharing the accumulated knowledge and experience of those who are in the midst of addressing these challenges is a crucial step. I’m so impressed with the commitment to improvement, quality, and safety I’ve seen in the leaders and caregivers in the Middle East. And this commitment will be on full display at this week – with leaders, experts, and delegates all sharing the lessons they’ve learned while pursuing the Triple Aim in the region, and beyond.

Accomplishing IHI’s mission of improving health and health care worldwide relies on steadily increasing the number of professionals who understand, and use, the science of improvement. This is what makes gatherings like this Middle East Forum so important. The Forum leverages the expertise, experience, and skill of those engaged in improvement to reach more and more health professionals who then, in turn, bring that accumulated knowledge back to their own organizations. Each year, the learning multiplies – with a deepening understanding of how the core concepts of improvement are best adapted to specific circumstances and contexts. This is essential to accelerating the pace of improvement.

I’m so glad you’ve joined us in Doha this year. Together this week, we will learn, be inspired, meet new colleagues, catch up with old ones, and help grow the movement to improve health and health care for all.

Derek Feeley

President and CEO

Institute for Healthcare Improvement​