Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) announced it will once again host one of the region’s most established and successful quality improvement conferences for healthcare professionals. The Middle East (ME) Forum on quality improvement and patient safety in healthcare will mark the fifth time that HMC collaborated with the internationally renowned Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) to deliver high quality advanced learning in the science of improvement.

Led by HMC’s Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute (HHQI), the annual conference will be held from 5 - 7 May 2017 at Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha. The conference reinforces the continued partnership between HMC and IHI, a not-for-profit organization that is a leading innovator in health and healthcare improvement worldwide.

The conference theme this year is “System wide transformation to achieve better patient care”. It centers on transformative approaches to optimizing health systems taking into account three dimensions: the experience of the individual; how to improve the health of a defined population; and how to reduce the per capita cost of health care. The conference will feature plenaries, lectures and workshop session from local, regional and global health experts.

Topics covered in the wide-ranging program will highlight the science behind improvement, the continuing transformation of clinical interventions and clinical systems, how healthcare leaders can drive improvements in their teams and organizations, and ways in which healthcare workers can enhance engagement with patients.

HMC Chief Quality Officer and HHQI Director, Dr. Ronald Wyatt, who is also the ME Forum Chair, said the ME Forum had become a mainstay on the event calendar and a popular professional development opportunity with healthcare industry workers in both Qatar and the wider region.

“The Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare provides an ideal platform to network with other experts, share best practice learning and discover not only the essence of improvement science but practical tools and ways of how to introduce real and sustainable systems improvements,” said Dr Wyatt. “We do this again with our strategic partner, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, who share with us their global quality improvement learnings so that we can adapt what works best for us here for our industry and our patients,” he added.

The conference will again include the highly popular quality improvement poster exhibition highlighting successful quality and safety improvement initiatives. Successful poster submissions will be included in the poster exhibition that will be on public display throughout the event.

Prospective participants can visit https://www.hamad.qa/ihimeforum2017 to register their interest and learn more about the poster competition. The full program is under development and will be available soon.

“Healthcare is one of the professions where you never stop learning and every healthcare professional should dedicate some of their time to learn and improve the care they provide to their patients,” said Forum Co-Chair, HMC Deputy Chief Medical Officer and Medical Education Director, Dr. Abdullatif Al-Khal. There is a continual need for those working in the industry to develop their knowledge in quality improvement methodology and to learn about the best tools available to help deliver better care for patients. Not only will delegates be able to achieve important continuing professional development (CPD) credits but they will learn from peers and be able to network with other professionals.”

Doctors, nurses, and allied health professionals attending the Middle East Forum are eligible to earn continuing healthcare education points. ​​