Article Text
Abstract
Background The Department of Health - Abu Dhabi (DoH) is the responsible organization that ensures high-quality, sustainable, and accessible care to a population of about 3 million. Improving the quality of care and enhancing patient experience are the top strategic priorities for the DoH and for Abu Dhabi Vision 2020. However, a quality framework had not been put in place to monitor the performance of healthcare providers and measure the quality levels. Moreover, there were variations in the clinical outcomes among the peer group of providers, which affected the patient experience. In order to improve the quality of care and patient experience, DoH introduced Abu Dhabi Quality Index in 2014, a comprehensive quality monitoring framework that is based on the latest thinking and innovative solutions that allows for continuous quality improvements. It consists of Jawda (quality in Arabic) indicators, patient experience survey, and healthcare professional satisfaction survey.
Methods To implement a wide scale of quality change, the DoH developed and implemented a quality improvement framework to enhance quality culture at system level, improve patient safety at the population level, and reduce quality outcome variation among all healthcare providers. This was achieved through a set of quality indicators, Jawda indicators, that measure clinical outcomes, patient safety, and accessibility. The initiation of what to focus on and the vison was around patients’ complaints analysis, workshops with stakeholders, and one-to-one meetings. This was a key driving case for change.
Results The latest data collected from 45 hospitals in Abu Dhabi have shown the following results:
20% reduction in unplanned readmission rate for pneumonia.
50% reduction in cardiopulmonary arrest outside critical care.
40% reduction in rate of falls resulting in any injury.
30% reduction in hospital–acquired or worsening pressure ulcer rate.
50% reduction in emergency primary cesarean section rate.
40% reduction in surgical site infection rate for emergency cesarean section.
Conclusion It has been 4 years since the introduction of Jawda indicators to the health sector in Abu Dhabi, and there have been improvements on the average of quality performance and reduction in quality variation among hospitals. More importantly, quality culture, transparency, and accountability were enhanced. The latest improvements to the program include risk adjustments and clinical subspecialty indicators such as stroke, orthopedics, and bariatric surgeries. In 2019, new quality dimensions will be added to the Abu Dhabi Healthcare Quality Index and hospital rankings will be published.