Joseph Varghese

The Ministry of Public Health (MoPH) will soon launch several national initiatives, including a national patient safety framework, to enhance patient safety in the country, a senior official announced.

“The national quality policy, patient safety framework, action plan to combat antimicrobial resistance, action plan for medication safety and the infection control and prevention programme are some of the initiatives that will be developed soon,” Huda al-Katheeri, acting director of the Healthcare Quality and Patient Safety Department at MoPH, said.
“These measures will be used to provide guidance to the health sector and the tools will be used for implementation of them,” the official stated.
Al-Katheeri was speaking at the 3rd Qatar Patient Safety Week organised by MoPH that started on Sunday.
More than 1,000 health practitioners are participating in the week-long event which is an educational and awareness campaign to promote the concept of patient safety among employees and users of healthcare institutions.
HE the Minister of Public Health, Dr Hanan Mohammed al-Kuwari was also present at the inaugural session of the programme. Dr Victor J Dzau, president, National Academy of Medicine, US, gave the keynote speech on the occasion.


A section of the audience at the event.

In a statement, HE al-Kuwari said, “Qatar, has made quality and safety of health services the basis for the development of the health system, as Qatar National Vision 2030 emphasises the development of an integrated healthcare system that provides high-quality preventive and treatment health services according to the highest international standards.”
The minister also underlined that the health sector works to ensure the highest levels of patient safety through the provision of the best safe and effective healthcare. She noted that patients and their families are key partners in this field.
The theme of the programme is "Together for Patient Safety" which reflects the importance of concerted efforts by all through strong partnerships at the level of the health system as a whole.
Al-Katheeri said that the department is running two programmes presently to ensure patient safety. “One is the national clinical guidelines programme used to standardise the care provided to the best evidence-based practices. The other one is the health service performance agreement where all the healthcare providers in the country regularly report the safety and quality indicators at the national level.”
She said that her department runs many awareness campaigns such as hand hygiene. “We have another initiative ‘ Patient safety friendly hospitals initiative’ by WHO EMRO. This was piloted in 2014. This year we have the actual implementation of the programme in two hospitals. Our ultimate goal is that we want patients to come to healthcare facilities and leave with better health,” added the official.