His Excellency the Minister of Health Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah inaugurated today, Sunday, Saudi Center for Patient Safety. On this occasion he extended thanks and appreciation to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, the Crown Prince and the Deputy Crown Prince, may Allah protect them, for their unlimited support for the Ministry of Health efforts to develop the health sector in the Kingdom. He confirmed that the center is one of the MOH's initiatives to improve the health care and a practical implementation of the development process undertaken by the ministry and in implementation of one of the most important initiatives of the National Transformation Program (NTP) in the health sector.
He said that the center will represent a national reference for all matters related to patient safety and to help preventing medical errors and will work to develop the national strategy for patient safety and ensuring its harmony with the initiatives of the NTP in the health sector.
Al-Rabiah expressed hope that the center will achieve the desired objectives and contribute to improving the health services, confirming that the patient safety is one of the most important health priorities, upon which many developmental programs are based and the health system relies on as a cornerstone in the health service system.
He added that the center and its tasks is reckoned a paradigm shift in the health service and will contribute to support the health process in our country in order to achieve the aspirations of our leaders and upgrade performance efficiency in the health facilities, in an effort to gain satisfaction of patients and beneficiaries of the health facilities.
It is noteworthy that one of the most prominent tasks assigned to the center is developing national strategy for patient safety, providing proposals for health systems and regulations, working to develop medical practices, procedures and policies in the field of patient safety in health facilities, in addition to conducting researches and theoretical and practical studies related to patient safety including thorough analytic researches and studies on the current situation of patient safety in the health institutions. The aim is to reach the best medical practices, monitoring and following up the medical errors at the national level, studying and analyzing them, identifying the causes and factors leading to it, developing appropriate solutions to enhance the safety and security of patients, visitors and staff in health facilities, and to supporting and encouraging researchers from outside the center to conduct researches on patient safety and encouraging national programs and initiatives for improving patient safety, as well as publishing the best practices in the field of patient safety and circulating them to all health institutions in the Kingdom. In addition to publishing periodicals, specialized scientific magazines, the outcomes of studies and researches in patient safety fields, raising the public awareness about safety and security of patients, holding educational and training courses and workshops on patient safety and risk management in health facilities, as well as establishing national system for reporting serious medical errors, analyzing them and disseminate the outcomes to the medical community, and then setting up a national registry of medical errors in coordination with the relevant authorities.
The tasks also include, developing and adopting solutions, initiatives and practices about maintaining the safety of patients, cooperating and exchanging expertise with relevant local, regional and international institutions, concluding agreements and partnerships, boosting cooperation and coordination between the Kingdom and other countries with the aim of achieving the center's objectives in accordance with applied rules and instructions, acting as a link between the public and private health sectors and patients and their families concerning patient safety initiatives. In addition to coordination with the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI) and Saudi Commission for Health Specialties (SCHS) to ensure that no duplication and contradiction in specialties, and compatibility in joint standards, requirements, plans and strategies, benefiting from their information infrastructure to serve the purposes of the center, and also recommending the concerned authorities to take necessary measures against negligent health facilities or the ones which are unable to implement the health regulations and procedures pertaining to the safety of patients.