Doha: Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) has announced that the next Middle East Forum on Quality and Safety in Healthcare in Doha will take place from March 22 to 24, 2019.

This is the seventh year in a row that the premier quality improvement conference for healthcare professionals in the Arab World is being held in collaboration with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI). IHI is an independent not-for-profit organization that works with healthcare professionals and healthcare systems to promote quality and patient safety enhancement efforts using the latest and best models for improvement.

The annual Forum has become a widely recognized and highly sought after platform for healthcare improvement learning and knowledge exchange, with the active participation of renowned improvement science experts from around the world.

Dr Abdullatif Al Khal (pictured), Deputy Chief Medical Officer and a Co-Chair of the Forum, said the reasoning behind the selection of the theme for this year’s conference, which is ‘Patient Safety First’.

“While healthcare organizations across the globe have made great strides in gaining a better understanding of the science of improvement, including patient safety enhancements, there is still a significant amount of work that healthcare professionals and healthcare systems must do to develop measurable and sustainable highly safe clinical care environments at both inpatient and outpatient levels. With this Forum we wanted to shine a spotlight on the importance of focusing on patient safety and acknowledging that, despite good intentions, patient harm can occur as we try to deliver care. The key areas that will be covered during the conference include: Patient Safety, Quality Improvement, Population Health, Workplace Effectiveness and Value, and Flow and Access,” said Dr Al Khal.

Under each of the five areas, there will be many sessions and tracks addressing their different aspects. The Middle East Forum provides doctors, nurses, allied health professionals, and students with a unique opportunity to learn and collaborate on a large scale. There will be over 50 lectures and workshop sessions delivered by local and leading international experts with many years of experience in applying the model for improvement.

The 2019 Forum will include plenaries by renowned quality and safety experts addressing the latest innovations in the field. Both those who have attended previous Forums and those who are attending for the first time, will find the conference very interesting and engaging.

To receive the early bird discount, participants can register online at MEF2019.hamad.qa.

The full Forum program will soon be announced so delegates can choose which workshop sessions and speaker presentations they would like to attend.