International Healthcare Accreditation… A Framework for Continuous Quality Improvement
By David Miller; Director – Guest Safety, Quality and Accreditation Systems at Al-Ahli Hospital - Doha / Qatar
Al-Ahli Hospital has, since its inception, been focused on providing high standards of care to the Qatar community. Our beloved guests have been provided with an ever-increasing range of cutting-edge procedures and interventions enabled using the latest technology and techniques.
In 2012, the hospital embarked on a formal process to optimize clinical and support services to ensure alignment with international best practice standards. This initiative was viewed as taking the next step in an ongoing journey of excellence. By striving for international healthcare accreditation, Al-Ahli Hospital was committing to a more structured approach to service delivery and a more demanding system of continuous quality improvement. By partnering with The Australian Council on Healthcare Standards International (ACHSI), Al-Ahli Hospital embraced an opportunity to make changes and further enhance the quality of all clinical and support services.
An ambition to achieve international healthcare accreditation created an energy well embraced by healthcare practitioners of all disciplines and by non-clinical professionals and supporting staff. One of the major benefits of the ACHSI accreditation program is its recognition of the critical role that non-clinical staff play in optimizing guest outcomes and satisfaction levels. This recognition often goes unnoticed and unrecognized. But, at Al-Ahli Hospital it helped us to engage everyone as part of our accreditation journey, and many non-clinical champions emerged during the process and contributed enormously to the high level of achievement conferred by ACHSI.
International Healthcare Accreditation status was first achieved in 2014 after much hard work implementing new standards and updated practices across clinical and non-clinical domains. Now, in 2023, almost ten years on, we are approaching the middle of our third accreditation cycle and have proven that our improved systems have not only been maintained but enhanced over the intervening period.
This has only been possible through employee engagement and an enormous effort from the entire team. Enthusiasm for improving the quality of care and enhancing the safety of our beloved guests is at the heart of everything we do, and now, our team members can take pride in the achievement of international healthcare accreditation, but in doing so, appreciate that the care provided and the environment in which it is provided, is safer and more appropriate for achieving excellence in healthcare delivery and outcomes.
ACHSI, our continuous quality improvement partners, provide a critical role in evaluating everything that we do. From onboarding procedures for recruits to evaluating the clinical outcomes we achieve, nothing goes unnoticed. The structure of the accreditation program ensures that every function is optimized for guest safety and quality outcomes, and all of this contributes to the feeling of satisfaction and accomplishment experienced by all of our wonderful staff as they contribute to safe, effective, timely, efficient and guest-centered care that is appreciated by our guests and is synonymous with the Al-Ahli Hospital brand.