More than 3,300 HMC employees have enrolled in the Healthcare Improvement (IHI) Open School since the opportunity was announced in May.
A total of 1,647 participants have completed 9,183 of the specialised online courses.
Each course takes one hour to two hours to complete and consists of several lessons, which take 15-30 minutes each.
At the end of each module, students are able to obtain an internationally recognised IHI Open School Certificate which contributes to their continuous learning requirements.
Launched in September 2008, the IHI Open School provides students of medicine, nursing, public health, pharmacy, health administration, dentistry, and other allied health professions an opportunity to learn about quality improvement and patient safety.
As part of its commitment to continuous improvement, HMC and IHI entered into a partnership.
Prof Michael Richmond, acting chief of medical, academic and research affairs at HMC, said the response by staff proved there was a great appetite for continuing education.
He said HMC’s employees have free access to the school which is an excellent online resource which will continue their learning
opportunities.
“We are delighted to see such an interest in quality improvement from a diverse range of staff and have encouraged not only our doctors and nurses to take these courses but others with a clinical and non-clinical background,” Prof Richmond said, adding: “Every healthcare professional should feel a sense of responsibility for the overall care provided in our hospitals, our home healthcare and residential care services and our emergency services. These courses provide a great opportunity to learn about the latest international models of and tools for quality improvement and patient safety.”
IHI Open School for Health Professions is an international organisation. It offers a range of online courses in quality improvement, patient safety, patient and family-centered care, managing healthcare operations, leadership and population health.
Dr Abdullatif al-Khal, deputy chief, medical education, HMC, said the future quality and safety of the corporation’s healthcare service lies with those training for careers in healthcare.
“While healthcare students today receive comprehensive training, targeted patient safety currently only plays a small part in that training,” he said while mentioning that the Corporation is working on ensuring that patient safety training is implemented at the beginning of the careers of healthcare professionals.
“The IHI Open School courses represent an important step in the direction of sharing relevant and practical knowledge that will benefit our patients and staff,” he said.
Staffers who have completed the courses said they were using the skills in an everyday setting.
“The modules help me to create procedures that are workable in our department. Not to mention that the programme is very accessible as we can work on it both in the office and at home,” Al Wakra Hospital surgery head Dr Ahmed Mohamed el-Faki said.
“It’s a great opportunity to develop and add new ideas to all the workers in the healthcare field with all their specialties, and to help them better understand the new dimensions of the process of healthcare development and provide better services to patients in a safe framework,” said Alaa Ibrahim Abdelrahman, a social worker in Hamad General Hospital’s social services.