HMC’s newest hospitals among its facilities accredited by JCI
Four of Hamad Medical Corporation’s (HMC) newest hospitals are among the 13 facilities and services accredited this month by Joint Commission International (JCI).
Three of these new hospitals - the Ambulatory Care Centre (ACC), Qatar Rehabilitation Institute (QRI) and the Communicable Disease Centre (CDC) were accredited for the first time while the Women’s Wellness and Research Centre (WWRC) - located on the same Hamad Bin Khalifa Medical City campus was re-accredited.
Qatar Rehabilitation Institute is Qatar’s only specialist rehabilitation hospital and provides rehabilitation services including inpatient care, day care, outpatient and paediatric clinics, speech, occupational and physical therapy, as well as communitybased rehabilitation to patients with stroke, traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury as well as other neurological conditions. Treatment of musculoskeletal disorders, pain management and outpatient paediatric rehabilitation are also provided.
Dr Wafa al-Yazeedi, chairperson of Rehabilitation at QRI, said: “Our clinicians, therapists and all our staff are so proud to have been successful in our first ever JCI survey and we are confident that the great work taking place across our facility has been instrumental to this accreditation success.”
The CDC, the region’s first communicable disease hospital dedicated to the diagnosis, treatment, prevention and control of infectious diseases, also achieved JCI accreditation for
the first time.
Dr Muna al-Maslamani, medical director of the CDC, said: “Last year we not only delivered care through more than 120,000 outpatient visits but we also saw 1,271 admissions to our specialised tuberculosis wards – 70% more than in 2017. This increase highlights the great work our staff are doing to raise awareness of TB among a rapidly growing population to ensure the condition does not spread untreated.”
Another of the new Medical City hospitals accredited for the first time by the JCI for its quality of care was the Ambulatory Care Center. The facility, which offers clinical care, day surgery and some inpatient surgical care, allows patients to access all their care needs in a single location. Its day surgery focus also means that patients who have a surgical procedure can often return home on the same day, enabling them to recover in the comfort of their own home without the need for an often-unwanted overnight hospital stay.
Dr Khalid al-Jalham, director of the ACC, said all the hospital’s staff members were proud of the Ambulatory Care Center achieving JCI accreditation for the first time. He said, “It is fantastic to see the great work we are doing at the ACC being formally recognised by such as prestigious accreditation body as the JCI.”
The last of HMC’s newest hospitals to be accredited this month was the WWRC. The new facility which provides women in Qatar with specialised clinical and surgical care manages all women’s health and maternity services as well as newborn care. This month’s re-accreditation success follows the accreditation of the former Women’s Hospital in 2016.
Dr Hilal al-Rifai, medical director at WWRC, said: “Our biggest success since the accreditation of Women’s Hospital as an academic centre in 2016, has been the transfer of all women and newborn services to our new, state-of-the-art hospital in Medical City.”
Dr al-Rifai also highlighted some of WWRC’s most recent achievements which include an expanded diabetes clinic which cares for between 1,500 and 1,700 pregnant women diagnosed with or at risk of type 1, type 2 and gestational diabetes each month. It has also recently established Qatar’s first pilot midwife-run home care programme for mothers who had a high-risk pregnancy or caesarian delivery and require extra care in their homes shortly after childbirth.