Al-Falih thanks king for promoting National Patient Safety Program

Health Minister Khalid Al-Falih has conveyed his sincere gratitude to Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman for briefing the Cabinet on the comprehensive national program for promoting patient safety and for recommending the program be studied by the Cabinet.
“When the program is implemented, it will raise the levels of safety by providing all the requirements, not only for government health care facilities but also for private sector ones,” he said.
Highlighting the program, the minister said that it would have two components. One is the Saudi Center for Patient Safety which will be responsible for setting rules, procedures and systems that will protect patients from medical errors and monitor the safety implementation.
The other is the Saudi National System for Reporting Medical Errors. The center will receive error reports, analyze and research them in cooperation with concerned local and international research centers.
The program also will survey health care facilities and grant them safety accreditation certificates, conduct field safety and security drills to assess readiness for emergencies. Also it will supervise awareness, training and education programs in the field to promote patient safety in all health care facilities Kingdomwide.
The minister said that he had appointed Dr. Abdulelah Hawsawi as director general of the program which will be headquartered in Riyadh. The program will be provided with all necessary human resources, and that the center’s administrative and financial bylaws will be ready within two weeks.
The minister said recently that this program was part of the new Health Ministry initiative to protect public health under the motto: “Citizens’ Health is First.” Patient safety is a primary concern for the ministry in light of infections due to inadequate precautions and preventive measures.
According to 2014 official figures, 2,413 cases of medical errors were recorded. Riyadh and the Eastern Province accounted for 20 percent and 17.6 percent of the cases, respectively. The number of court hearings dealing with medical errors was 2,838. Twenty-six percent of these were in Riyadh, according to the report which was published in a local daily.
Source :Arab News