Doha, 18 May 2019: Four of Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) newest hospitals were among the thirteen facilities and services accredited this month by Joint Commission International (JCI) in HMC’s greatest accreditation success to date.
Three of these new hospitals - the Ambulatory Care Center (ACC), Qatar Rehabilitation Institute (QRI) and the Communicable Disease Center (CDC) - were accredited for the first time while Women’s Wellness and Research Center (WWRC) - located on the same Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City campus - was re-accredited.
JCI accreditation is seen as the gold standard for the accreditation of hospitals worldwide and requires strict patient safety and quality improvement standards to be met before accreditation is granted.
Qatar Rehabilitation Institute is Qatar’s only specialist rehabilitation hospital and provides rehabilitation services including inpatient care, day care, outpatient and pediatric clinics, speech, occupational and physical therapy, as well as community-based rehabilitation to patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury as well as other neurological conditions. Treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, pain management and outpatient pediatric rehabilitation are also provided.
Commenting on QRI’s recent JCI accreditation success as well as its achievements since opening, Dr Wafa Al Yazeedi, Chairperson of Rehabilitation at QRI said: “Our clinicians, therapists and all our staff are so proud to have been successful in our first ever JCI survey and we are confident that the great work taking place across our facility has been instrumental to this accreditation success. Since opening our first clinic in 2016, we have cared for over 80,000 outpatients as well as more than 1,000 inpatients since the arrival of our first inpatient in March 2017.”
Accompanying Qatar Rehabilitation Institute, the Communicable Disease Center (CDC) – the region’s first communicable disease hospital dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of infectious diseases - also achieved JCI accreditation for the first time.
Highlighting the pride felt by staff at achieving JCI accreditation and some of the many achievements of the Communicable Disease Center, Dr. Muna Al Maslamani, Medical Director of the CDC said:: “Last year we not only delivered care through more than 120,000 outpatient visits but we also saw 1,271 admissions to our specialized tuberculosis (TB) wards – 70 percent more than in 2017. This increase highlights the great work our staff are doing to raise awareness of TB among a rapidly growing population to ensure the condition does not spread untreated. Although TB is the most common infectious disease we see, we also treat patients suffering from a range of other infectious diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), influenza, measles, hepatitis, Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (Aids), as well as a number of travel-related diseases and illnesses. We also offer a dedicated Travel Clinic which offers vaccinations and preventative information for people travelling overseas as well as treatment for those returning with travel-related illnesses.”
Another of the new Medical City hospitals accredited for the first time by the JCI for its quality of care was the Ambulatory Care Center (ACC). The facility which offers clinical care, day surgery, and some inpatient surgical care, allows patients to access all their care needs in a single location. Its day surgery focus also means that patients who have a surgical procedure can often return home on the same day, enabling them to recover in the comfort of their own home without the need for an often-unwanted overnight hospital stay.
Dr. Khalid Al Jalham, Director of the ACC said that all the hospital’s staff were proud of the Ambulatory Care Center achieving JCI accreditation for the first time.He said: “It is fantastic to see the great work we are doing at the ACC being formally recognized by such as prestigious accreditation body as the JCI.
Since opening our first outpatient clinics with the launch of our podiatry services two years ago, we have continued to expand and improve. We have since launched an increasing number of clinical and surgical services including gastroenterology, urology, audiology, and ENT outpatient clinics as well as a pre-admission anesthesia clinic. We now hope to launch our ophthalmology service later this year.”
Dr. Al Jalham continued: “Together with a growth in the breadth and range of services we offer, we have also seen a corresponding increase in the number of patients we see. In 2018, we received more than 153705 outpatient visits at the Ambulatory Care Center and more than 5655 surgical procedures were performed. All our staff are incredibly proud of these achievements and we are delighted to have our quality of care formally recognized by the JCI through this accreditation.”
The last of HMC’s newest hospitals to be accredited this month was the Women’s Wellness and Research Center (WWRC). The new facility which provides women in Qatar with specialized clinical and surgical care manages all women’s health and maternity services as well as newborn care. This month’s re-accreditation success following the accreditation of the former Women’s Hospital in 2016.
Commenting on the re-accreditation and the Women’s Wellness and Research Center’s achievements over the past three years, Dr. Hilal Al Rifai, Medical Director at WWRC said: “Our biggest success since the accreditation of Women’s Hospital as an academic center in 2016, has been the transfer of all women and newborn services to our new, state-of-the-art hospital in Medical City.”
He continued: “Since we welcomed our first outpatients to the Women's Wellness and Research Center in May 2017, we have seen the successful transfer of nearly all clinics and services from the former Women’s Hospital to our new facility. These include all gynecology and hormone replacement therapy services, as well as all well-baby clinics and the Fetomaternal Medicine Unit. We have also seen the successful move of all inpatient, emergency and surgical services along with the transfer of the National Newborn Screening Unit and our Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) to the WWRC. Our new NICU is one of the largest in the region and provides specialized care to 2,500 neonates a year.”
Dr. Al Rifai also highlighted some of WWRC’s most recent achievements which include an expanded diabetes clinic which cares for between 1,500 and 1,700 pregnant women diagnosed with or at risk of type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes each month. It has also recently established Qatar’s first pilot midwife-run home care program for mothers who had a high-risk pregnancy or caesarian delivery and require extra care in their homes shortly after childbirth.
