WORLD INNOVATION SUMMIT FOR HEALTH HOLDS THE FIRST GLOBAL ACADEMY FOR EMERGING LEADERS IN PATIENT SAFETY IN QATAR

Programme To Teach Local Medical Students And Faculty How To Reduce Medical Error To Ensure The Delivery Of Quality Healthcare

Doha, Qatar, 23 March 2016: The World Innovation Summit for Health (WISH), a global initiative of Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Community Development (QF), will host the first global Academy for Emerging Leaders in Patient Safety from 23rd to 26th March in Doha, Qatar.

The event, organised in partnership with Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar (WCM-Q), will provide exceptional training for medical and nursing students committed to the delivery of safe, high quality patient care. It reflects WISH’s ongoing commitment to improve patient safety through its research, a commitment which is further illustrated by its involvement in the Patient Safety Global Action Summit in London earlier this month.

WISH has collaborated with several institutes to bring together specialists from the United States and Qatar to participate in the programme, which will involve training nearly a hundred Qatar-based faculty and health science students from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC), Sidra Medical and Research Center, Weill Cornell Medicine – Qatar, Qatar University, College of the North Atlantic Qatar (CNA-Q) and the University of Calgary in Qatar (UCQ). Students will learn about the importance of open communication, and about specific tools and strategies that can be used to reduce harm to patients. The universities’ faculty members will learn how to effectively teach students best practices around patient safety.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), one in ten patients around the world are harmed while receiving hospital care. Preventable medical errors persist as the number three killer in the U.S., behind heart disease and cancer, claiming the lives of some 400,000 people each year and adding $1 trillion to medical costs.

Egbert Schillings, CEO of WISH, remarked: “WISH has a long-standing commitment to patient safety across a number of

our programmes. This training academy for students and faculty from all the health science colleges of Qatar takes our efforts to a whole new level. Her Highness Sheikha Moza bint Nasser founded WISH to help improve health through global collaboration. There is no better example of this vision in action than by bringing together the best expertise the world has to offer, for the benefit of young leaders and the patients they will take care of right here in Qatar.”

Highlighting the importance of the academy event, Dr Timothy B. McDonald, Medical Director for Quality and Safety, Sidra Medical and Research Center, said: “The key to providing highly reliable and ultra-safe care depends upon the creation of well-trained interdisciplinary teams. Until recently, most of the educational efforts for health care professionals has existed in silos. Medical students train with medical students, nursing students train with nursing students, allied health students train with allied health students. This methodology has not been conducive to training the next generation of healthcare professionals for delivering team-based care that is necessary, safe and provides high quality care outcomes.”

Dr David Mayer, Vice President of Quality and Safety, MedStar Health, commented: “We applaud WISH for not only acknowledging the importance of the ‘Educate the Young’ mission, but for also taking to heart what the spirit of that mission holds for the future of delivering the safest, highest quality global healthcare. We look forward to partnering with these visionary sponsors to continue this work for years to come.”

Rebal Turjoman, a third-year medical student at WCM-Q and 2015 WISH Apprentice Innovator, worked closely with the programme and other organisers to bring the academy to Qatar. “I was quite eager to help bring the academy to Qatar, as the curriculum is unprecedented for students in this region,” he said. “Typically, they would become better acquainted with the concept of patient safety later in their careers. Students here can enrich the current patient safety conversation by giving insight into sociocultural differences. I hope this event will help establish a multi-disciplinary network that can facilitate the process of quality improvement in the region, as well as be a fruitful step towards the globalisation of patient safety and quality care.”

In 2013, WISH led a major initiative on the critical issue of patient safety, with a research forum chaired by Dr Peter Pronovost, Director of the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins, and Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Senior Vice President for Patient Safety and Quality. WISH has extended its work by launching the Safer Care Accelerator Program by Leading Health Systems Network (LHSN) in partnership with Imperial College London.WISH has used the initiative’s research as a springboard to launch further studies on how different health systems around the world protect patient safety by reducing medical error. LHSN will present its complete report at WISH’s upcoming summit, taking place on 29-30 November in Doha, Qatar.

For further information about WISH, please visit www.wish-qatar.org and Twitter @WISHQatar.

For a complete list of QF’s initiatives and projects, visit www.qf.org.qa