Investment in quality and safety

JCI works to identify, measure, and share best practices in quality and patient safety around the world

The Joint Commission International (JCI) is a worldwide leader in healthcare accreditation and the author and evaluator of the most rigorous international standards in quality and patient safety.

The mission of JCI is “to improve the awareness of patient safety and quality of healthcare in the international community through the provision of education, publications, consultation, and evaluation services.” JCI works to identify, measure, and share best practices in quality and patient safety around the world. It provides leadership and innovative solutions to help healthcare organisations across all settings to improve performance and outcomes. Healthcare organisations seeking JCI accreditation do so upon realising the importance of standards to enhance quality and patient safety. Indeed, many organisations in the Middle East consider accreditation by JCI to be an investment in quality and safety.

“Whether an organisation is pursuing accreditation for the first time or has been accredited for several years, JCI standards provide the structure and guidelines to help an organisation provide the highest quality and safest care possible, and to do so consistently. JCI accreditation truly is an investment in quality and safety,” says Ashraf Ismail, MD, MPH, CPHQ, Managing Director, Middle East Office, Joint Commission International.

The JCI standards and certification procedures have worked effectively for several leading healthcare brands in the region. They believe that their success is based on their ability to constantly provide high quality and safe care, as well as efficient and affordable care to patients. According to Dr Ismail, “Organisations depend on JCI to define best practices and global benchmarks for improvement, and then provide the tools and advisory services to help achieve quality and safety goals.”

It is this emphasis on quality

and safety that drives demand for JCI accreditation in the region, especially in the UAE. The Ministry of Health in the UAE is notable for having 19 of its organisations accredited by JCI. “This is not only unprecedented, but also very encouraging, as the government has also ordered all healthcare organisations in the Northern Emirates to be JCI-accredited by 2021. To date, 147 healthcare organisations throughout the UAE are JCI-accredited, which is the highest number of JCI-accredited organisations in any country,” informs Dr Ismail.

As the number of accredited organisations in the UAE grows, there has been a marked increase in medical tourism in the country. While more residents are receiving treatment, visitors from Western countries are seeking medical procedures here, thanks to attractive costs, modern facilities, worldclass expertise and JCI accredited organisations.

“The truth is that when organisations invest in quality and safe care, the return potential is high indeed,” remarks Dr Ismail.