Dubai // More than Dh1 billion was spent improving healthcare last year, according to the Minister of Health.
Speaking at the opening of the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress, which runs until Thursday at the Dubai International Convention and Exhibition Centre, Dr Hanif Hassan Ali said the Government had spent Dh1.3 billion constructing and fitting out hospitals in Umm al Qaiwain and Ras al Khaimah, both of which will open this year.
Healthcare professionals from around the world addressed a host of medical issues relevant to the region yesterday.
Conference attendees had the opportunity to choose from six topics, including Quality Management in Healthcare talks.
At the opening of the talks, Dr Samer Ellaham, chief quality officer and senior consultant at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City’s Cleveland Clinic in Abu Dhabi, said: “There are significant gaps in quality management practices throughout the Middle East. We need to raise the importance of quality management to improve the quality of healthcare.”
The keynote address was delivered by Dr Mark Chassin, the president of The Joint Commission, which accredits healthcare programmes and organisations in the US.
He said quality management required greater teamwork and constant communication between departments to ensure information was transferred appropriately.
“It is often difficult to get clinicians working in one department to recognise that what they do affects other departments and that other departments affect what they are able to do. We have to realise we are all in this together and the patient is the centre of our attention.”
He added that quality management issues tended to be similar, whether they arise in the Middle East, Asia, Europe or the United States.
