The Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (Seha) has signed a two-year agreement with Johns Hopkins Medicine International (JHI), on behalf of Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality in Baltimore, to increase patient safety at Abu Dhabi hospitals.

The agreement was signed by Mohamed Hamad Al Hameli, Seha’s chief, support services; Peter Pronovost, senior vice president for patient safety and quality and director of the Johns Hopkins’ Armstrong Institute and Steven J Thompson, chief executive officer of Johns Hopkins Medicine International.

This collaboration demonstrates the high level of commitment of Seha leadership to improve the patient safety culture within its healthcare facilities in order to prevent medical errors and complications of care such as infections, said a statement.

The initiative will measure the workplace safety culture, introduce interventions such as safety checklists within hospital units, provide basic and advanced patient safety training for clinical staff and develop local patient safety leaders, encourage medical research to study the root causes of medical errors, collaborate between pharmacies, medical and nursing colleges to  introduce patient safety curriculums,  with aims to achieve improvements in patient safety  and ensure they are sustained within the organization over the long term, it said.

Saif Bader Al Qubaisi, managing director and chairman of Seha, added: “When a patient entrusts us with their care, they have a right to expect quality care delivered in a safe and effective manner.  Our vision is to be recognised as a world-class healthcare provider and to do so, we must continually improve our standards and be fully transparent to be able to prevent medical errors and optimize provided care.    Accordingly, we welcome the expertise of Johns’ Hopkins for the benefit of all our customers and communities served.”

Johns Hopkins and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality are internationally recognized experts in patient safety and have a successful track record of working with organizations both in the US and internationally to achieve tangible improvements in patient safety.  

The Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality is led by Professor Pronovost, who was named as one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2008 by Times magazine due to his expert work and influence in the field of patient safety; that same year, Pronovost was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship, otherwise known as a 'genius grant'.

He’s also an intensive care physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore and Maryland JH University School of Medicine JH Bloomberg School of Public Health.

He is particularly well known for introducing an ICU protocol that during an 18-month period was estimated to have saved 1,500 lives and $100 million in the State of Michigan.  This intervention is a key component of the Seha patient safety initiative, said the statement. – TradeArabia News Service