Today, the sessions of the Ministry of Health's (MOH) advisory meeting, held in Jeddah, at the presidency of his Excellency the Minister of Health Dr. Abdullah bin Abdulaziz Al Rabeeah, have been resumed by reviewing the phases which the MOH's ten year, 1430-1440, strategic planhas gone through. Such a plan focuses on serving the patients and gaining their satisfaction, and materializing the MOH's motto "Patient First", and what has been accomplished in terms of programs serving that regard. As such, the MOH sought to upgrade its health services, establish the corporate work culture, develop the human resources, and bring out the best in the resources available. This in turn mirrors positively in providing high-quality healthcare living up to the expectations of our rulers, May Allah protect them, and meeting the citizens' health needs through the National Project for the Integrated and Inclusive Healthcare. In like manner, the Minister of Health along with those present discussed the significance of deepening and entrenching the culture of measurement and increasing the productivity in all fields.
Further, the meetingshone light on the MOH finishing the phase of accrediting JCI-Program-based 20 hospitals, Central Board for Accreditation of Health Institutions (Cbahi)-based 25 hospitals, as well as the MOH entering into the phase of accrediting Cbahi-based 37 hospitals and JCI-Program-based 12 hospitals in the next year. Similarly, the meeting touched upon increasing the productivity of hospitals in relation to conducting the operations and one-day operations, making more examinations for the patients, not delaying the operations, reducing thewaiting time as much as possible, putting an end to the waiting lists, as well as moving on with more accreditation and quality.
Meanwhile, his Excellency the Vice Minister for Planning and Development, Dr. Mohammed Khoshaim pointed out that the meeting brought up the issue of the medication safety, following up on the serious errors via the E-system reporting once an error occurs and averting it. The meeting also discussed the MOH entering into the Measurement Program which involves the upgrading process by measuring the medical errors, as well as serious and negative incidents. Not only that, but it also measures all what is going on in the MOH whether productivity shortage or others.Even more, the meeting broached up the performance indicators as far as the MOH or the hospital is concerned.
Within the same vein, Dr. Khoshaim noted that the meeting reviewed the Visiting Physician's Program's achievements, especially in the regions where the patients' waiting listsgreatly run up.In a similar fashion, he made clear that since its initiation, the Program recruited 3330 visiting consulting physicians to work for the MOH's hospitals. The meeting also suggested conducting surveys to measure the patient's satisfaction on the health service provided for them within the health facilities. They are to behanded out secretly. Then, they are considered andsolutions are provided for all the insufficiency aspects the patient faced.
Moreover, Dr. Khoshaim drew the attention to the fact that an agreement has been struck with several neutral bodies such as the universities, associations, and Institute of Public Administration, to randomly choose the hospitals for conducting surveys with the patients. This aims to determine how satisfied they are with the medical facility, medical crew, and service forms delivered to them from their admission to their discharging.
Dr. Khoshaim went on adding that the meeting touched upon the optimal use for the bed and ways of benefitting from the one-day operations, making clear that the MOH jumped from 2% to 42% in terms of the one-day surgery operations. In like manner, he pointed out that the MOH listed the gallbladder operations on the one-day operations list, to the effect that the patient is admitted at 8 am and discharged at 6 pm. In so doing, the MOH shortened the waiting lists forming a barrier before the patients.
Similarly, Dr. Khoshaim noted the meeting reviewed the work flow in the 937 call center, obstacles holding back upgrading the service, and its major achievements since its launching. He further made clear that the rate of calls received within the 24 hours reached 924 ones. Since its launching, the Center received 304868 ones, of these are emergency reports, negligence complaints, medical consultations, and inquiries. On the other hand, the Coronavirus-related consultations within the past days alone amounted to 20 thousand calls, due to intensifying the health awareness and sending text messages (SMS) for all subscribers.
Dr. Khoshaim finally added that the meeting also brought up the experiment of the e-referring (Ihalati) Program and the procedures and policies related to the patients' referring. He similarly recommended creating a mechanism for capitalizing on the available capabilities with the aim of supporting the regions in lack of some specialties, as well as drawing on the Riyadh and Ha'il's experiments. In addition to this, the Program dealt with more than 95 thousand cases since its launching.