The Ministry of Health (MOH) announced that 4 primary healthcare centers have been granted the accreditation certificate by the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI), as they succeeded in meeting the CBAHI accreditation standards for primary health care. These standards include leadership, quality management, patient safety, manpower, data management and medical records, rights of patients and their families, public clinics, referral, and community participation, health promotion, health education, maternal and child health, immunizations, non-communicable diseases, elderly care, communicable diseases, oral and dental health, emergency services, environmental health, laboratory services, radiology services, pharmacy services and facility management and safety, in addition to infection control and prevention.
The four centers are as follows: Al Gharb Healthcare Center, Dawmat Al-Jandal and Family Medicine Healthcare Center in Al-Mukhatat, Dawmat Al-Jandal and Healthcare Center in Al-Muzaylif, Al-Qunfudah and Al-Khalidiya Healthcare Center in Al-Qunfudah. All these centers have succeeded in meeting the accreditation standards of quality and patient safety in primary healthcare, thus bringing the number of the accredited healthcare centers to 76 centers, while a number of 14 healthcare centers failed in meeting the aforementioned standards and a corrective action plan has been developed for them.
The MOH pointed out that this accreditation reflects the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) keenness to invest all the available capabilities for promoting and improving the services at its healthcare facilities, in line with the health initiatives of the National Transformation Program (NTP) and the Saudi Vision 2030. By the end of 2017, the MOH targets the accreditation of a number of 100 healthcare centers across the different regions of the Kingdom, given that the objective is not to obtain such certificate, but to spread the culture of quality, as the accreditation certificate is just a step in the endless journey of quality.
It is worth mentioning that the MOH, as part of its contribution to achieving the objectives of the National Transformation Program 2020, has recently launched an initiative: “Reform and Restructuring the Primary Healthcare”. This initiative comes as part of 40 initiatives, through which the MOH aims to develop and improve the healthcare services and facilities throughout the Kingdom, in such a manner that meets the requirements of society and achieves the aspirations of the wise leadership, May Allah support it.
This new initiative aims to provide advanced and distinct services in the primary healthcare sector; in an endeavor to promote the level of satisfaction with its services and to strengthen the patients’ confidence of the healthcare services provided to them. Also, with the increasing number of outpatients, the initiative seeks to restore confidence in the primary healthcare centers and reach all beneficiaries, thus reducing the burden on the various health cadres, enhancing the preventive aspects and making the health services closer to the beneficiary, as well as reducing the overcrowding at emergency section and outpatient clinics.