Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah, who revealed the initiative at an Eid Al-Adha reception organized by the ministry at its Riyadh headquarters on Saturday, said the private sector is a strategic partner in providing health care services to both citizens and expatriates. “So, its hospitals will be included in both systems, as is the case with hospitals of the ministry,” he said, addressing a large audience of health care leaders from both the ministry and other health care sectors.
“Already 10 of the ministry’s hospitals are in the process of gaining accreditation by the Joint Commission International (America's leading health care accreditation body),” he pointed out.
Al-Rabeeah said the ministry is very much concerned with its performance. Therefore it is working to develop methodologies for control and measurement of medical performance and developed 49 indicators to be identified in hospital performance measurement.
Also, the ministry is very much emphasizing on human resources development. “So last year we trained over 80,000 of our physicians, nurses, technicians, and administrators and sent a number of 2,500 students to study medicine at reputable universities in the Kingdom and abroad, and we hope to increase this number this year,” Al-Rabeeah said.
The minister mentioned two new programs introduced this year have produced outstanding results. The first is the One Day Surgery Program that succeeded in conducting over 55,000 operations with 100 percent from hospitals with at least 100 beds. The other is the Home Care Program that also succeeded in delivering health care services to over 10,000 immobile patients.
