JHAH symposium spotlights patient safety in COVID-19 times

The speakers at the symposium included in-Kingdom experts from organizations such as the Ministry of Defense, Imam Abdulrahman bin Faisal Hospital, Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare, Johns Hopkins Medicine International, as well as from Johns Hopkins Medicine.

The event was the 7th annual Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare Patient Safety Symposium, which from its inception has been held in coordination with the Johns Hopkins Medicine’s Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality. This year’s theme was “Maintaining Quality and Patient Safety during a Pandemic.”

“Maintaining quality, patient and staff safety during the current pandemic was the theme of this symposium. We had great speakers from our colleagues in Johns Hopkins Medicine US, nationally, and from our JHAH staff. There was excellent attendance and participation for our first virtual meeting, with more than 1,500 participating in this event, and the feedback has been outstanding,” said Dr. Saeed Al-Yami, chief quality and patient safety officer at JHAH.

The annual event is designed to bring together healthcare professionals at all levels to explore current priorities in patient safety and quality and to raise awareness of important patient safety and public health issues that influence practice. As the COVID-19 pandemic remains one of the biggest threats to patient safety, the majority of this year’s agenda focused on managing and maintaining quality of care while adhering to strict new patient safety guidelines.

The symposium, held virtually for the first time, included a poster session that displayed a wide range of studies and activities that have been or are currently being conducted at JHAH. The winning poster was the “Cost-effectiveness and outcomes of early or same-day discharge after elective percutaneous coronary intervention in the Heart and Vascular Institute at Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare.”

“There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that the ramifications of COVID-19 and the way we have responded to it will be with us for some considerable time. So it is great to be able to collect and learn from the insights at this stage and to do so safely in a virtual forum such as this. I would like to thank all the presenters, organizers, and those who participated so actively in the symposium,” said Dr. Michael Walsh, chief executive, JHAH, in his closing remarks.