Healthcare | Wednesday 13 May, 2015 10:23 am |

Health Authority –Abu Dhabi (HAAD) is developing the Abu Dhabi Healthcare Quality Index (ADHQI) to drive continuous improvement in patient safety and quality of healthcare, the HAAD & MEED Middle East Patient Safety & Quality Congress 2015 which opens on 11 May will be told.
“The objective is a comprehensive and transparent quality framework that will be the first in the region and will build up & improve on the latest thinking on quality internationally,” says HAAD Strategy Director Dr Asma Al Mannaei. “We are looking in the longer-term to make this index available for any of our partner organisations in GCC and beyond to enable benchmarking to drive continuous improvement.”
Al Mannaei is participating in the opening Congress’ keynote panel about patient safety in Abu Dhabi and the GCC. Other panelists include HE Professor Tawfik Khoja, Director General of the Executive Board of the GCC Health Ministers' Council, Dr Buthaina Al Mudaf, Director of Quality and Patient Safety at Kuwait’s Health Ministry; Dr Ahmed Salim Mandhari, Director General of Quality Assurance at Oman’s Health Ministry; the session is moderated by the Rt. Honourable Professor Lord Kakkar PC, Chairman, University College London Partners.
HAAD is the Official Host for the Middle East Patient Safety & Quality Congress 2015. It is endorsed by the GCC Health Ministers Council and the Saudi Quality Council. The event is CME accredited by the Saudi Commission for Health Specialties.

The Opening Keynote Address will be delivered by H.E. Maha Barakat, Director General of Health Authority Abu Dhabi and The Honourable David Prior, Chair of UK’s Care Quality Commission, who will speak about the future of quality and patient safety in healthcare and Abu Dhabi’s role in spearheading excellence in the Middle East.
Al Mannaei says the ADHQI, designed to ensure Abu Dhabi’s integrated Quality Framework puts patients at the centre of care, rewards evidence-based practice, improves outcomes and reflects the highest global standards. It will initially focus on hospitals, but clinics and other healthcare facilities will be added later.
“The framework will define a uniform set of globally-informed standards that will be used to evaluate providers in all aspects of their quality performance,” says Al Mannaei. “The final framework will specify quality standards and performance targets to ensure consistent application by regulators and providers alike and guide quality improvement efforts in the future.”
The HAAD Quality Framework involves developing the index, a robust governance framework and stakeholder engagement. It is one of seven key priorities in HAAD's five-year health sector strategy.
Dr. Omar Najim, Senior Advisor at HAAD, who will be speaking at the Congress states, “Abu Dhabi is focusing on improving the whole healthcare system to deliver the highest quality that is both accessible to its population and sustainable for the future.”
“The HAAD vision is a healthier Abu Dhabi. To achieve that, the authority has developed a healthcare sector strategy and a key component of this strategy is ensuring a high quality of care for all. Quality of care is a core component of providing healthcare in general,” says Najim. “High quality care means a healthier society that is more productive, happier and able to contribute to building successful nations and economies.”
Benchmarks for measuring quality include the standardized mortality rate; timeliness of care; patient satisfaction and measures of processes.
“Measuring all this will help identify variations of care that need to be standardised,” says Al Mannaei.
Al Mannaei says that the drive of higher quality in healthcare in Abu Dhabi echoes global developments. “There are many countries, organisations, policy-makers and individuals around the world participating and changing healthcare delivery to have more quality focus,” she says. “They include the WHO, with their publishing of the patient safety and quality curriculum and leading indicators bank; the UK’s Care Quality Commission with their intelligent reporting approach, the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality in the US with their bank of indicators for quality, the US’ Institute of Healthcare Improvements with their focus on education and a campaign to promote the use of the latest thinking on quality improvement, and Singapore with their application of IT to ensure high quality of care.”
To find out more about the Middle East Patient Safety & Quality Congress 2015, contact:
Shreya.maheshwari@meed.com or call +971 48180283