NewsDetail
Qatar has today achieved significant distinction after Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) became the first healthcare system across the globe to have all of its hospitals accredited by the Joint Commission International (JCI) under the Academic Medical Centre program.
It has also become the first hospital system outside of the United States to achieve JCI Academic Medical Center accreditation for all its hospitals simultaneously.
This follows almost two months of rigorous on-site surveys by the internationally-renowned independent JCI, which identifies, measures, and shares leading practices in health care quality and patient safety across the world.
Since the beginning of January this year, a JCI team of surveyors has closely examined over 304 standards and 1400 measureable elements in the hospitals that make up Hamad Medical Corporation – all of which have now received official Gold Seal of Approval® for accreditation under the Academic Medical Center Hospital standards. JCI accreditation is considered to be the gold standard in health care.
This achievement is even more impressive as the hospitals were evaluated against JCI’s 5th edition standards – the most challenging standards to date – and demonstrates that staffs across the organization in every facility are applying the same very high standards of care.
Achieving accreditation on this scale means that Hamad Medical Corporation is fully compliant with JCI standards for the delivery of day-to-day safe, high quality care as well as the International Patient Safety Goals.
Her Excellency Dr Hanan Mohamed Al Kuwari, Minister of Public Health and Managing Director at HMC, said:
“This world-first accreditation is an enormous achievement for HMC and the public health system in Qatar and demonstrates its commitment to continuously learning, teaching and improving care.
“This achievement puts HMC alongside an elite international group of healthcare providers to gain Academic Medical Center accreditation and shows that its approach to developing excellence in healthcare in Qatar is transforming the care it is providing for patients.”
Dr. Paul Chang, Vice President, Accreditation, Standards and Measurement, Joint Commission International said:
“Successfully achieving Academic Medical Center Accreditation simultaneously across all hospitals shows there is more than just a commitment to provide great care all the time – there’s a commitment to share learning and develop new ways of delivering even better care.
“All the staff at Hamad should be congratulated for such an outstanding achievement.”
Prof. Adeel Butt, Interim Chief Quality Officer, Director, Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute said that accreditation by JCI and the distinction of becoming the first organization to achieve system-wide compliance with Academic Medical Center standards underlines the progress Hamad Medical Corporation has made in becoming a place where the world’s leading clinicians and researchers now want to come and work. He said:
“Over the last 10 years we’ve been able to attract more and more of the world’s leading clinicians and researchers to come and work here at Hamad, and today’s announcement is the clearest signal yet that our journey is delivering very real and positive results.”
“Of course, our patients are the people who ultimately benefit from this – by focusing on academic health we are able to push new boundaries of health care, finding new solutions to support patients with long term and chronic conditions that will have a lasting impact on their quality of life.”
Dr. Badriya Al Ali, Deputy Chief Quality Officer for Hamad Medical Corporation said that today’s announcement was the pinnacle of a 10 year period in which the JCI has evaluated quality at HMC, which has supported hospital staff to continuously improve the quality and safety of care they provide. She said:
“This is a momentous occasion which recognizes all the hard work that our staff across all of our hospitals put into providing the highest quality and safest care every day.
“I am delighted that we have demonstrated sustainable quality that HMC can offer to the public and that we are accredited corporately as an Academic Medical Center, which was achieved through a huge team effort.”
Dr. Yousuf Al Maslamani, Medical Director, Hamad General Hospital, added:
“Every single employee of Hamad knows that our approach is to provide the Best Care Always. Today’s announcement shows we are delivering on that commitment and that we have made significant strides towards becoming one of the world’s leading health care providers.”
