More than 400 health care professionals representing over 12 organizations across the Kingdom as well as a diverse group of health care providers from the US-based Johns Hopkins Medicine came together recently with a single-minded purpose — patient safety and quality of care in Saudi Arabia.
The event on Jan. 12 and 13 was the 6th Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare Patient Safety Symposium, which from its inception has been held in coordination with Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality.
“The Patient Safety Symposium was the first major event we held at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare (JHAH),” said Dr. Daniele Rigamonti, JHAH CEO. “We had determined early on that a focus on patient safety would be an area where we could have a major and immediate impact on patient care both within JHAH and across the Kingdom.”
The annual event is designed to bring together both in-Kingdom expertise from organizations such as the Ministry of Health, JHAH, the Saudi Patient Safety Center, the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (CBAHI) as well as US-based Johns Hopkins Medicine.
“What I have seen over the years is the amazing capacity of not only JHAH staff but also the invited health care professionals to share and learn and to develop an amazing platform on which to move forward with patient safety both locally and globally as well ... I feel privileged to learn from my friends and colleagues in Saudi Arabia and take that learning with me to share where ever I can,” said Paula Kent, patient safety specialist, Johns Hopkins Medicine.
This year, the symposium included a poster session that displayed a wide range of studies and activities that have been or are currently being conducted at JHAH. The winning poster was the “Lean Six Sigma Project for Improving Oncology Patient Waiting Time for Chemotherapy Administration.”
As patient safety is the responsibility of everyone in a health care organization, both the presentations and participants highlighted a wide range of topics and disciplines from quality improvement to human resources.