ISQua and IHF have a long history of collaboration. Together, they attended the WHO Global Consultation on Patient Safety in February 2020, and disseminated surveys on the topic to their respective members about this essential pillar of quality care. IHF questioned its members about patient safety measures, while ISQua focused on incident reporting systems. Two surveys were sent, one in January and the second in July. The results are detailed in this joint report, in which you will also get a first look at the impact of Covid-19 on the safety culture and its multiple dimensions

Four months after the beginning of the epidemic in Brazil, the COVID-19 numbers are still concerning the health authorities, not only due to the frightening number of deaths caused by the disease. In recent weeks, attention has grown even more after several Medical Entities began to speak about the silent increase in incidences of serious diseases, such as cancer, for example, and sudden deaths, attributed to cardiac patients. This increase is directly related to the suspension or abandonment of medical treatments, either due to service guidance or due to the patient's own decision, who ended up deciding to stay home fearing contracting COVID-19.

The deadline of entries for the Beyond the Call of Duty for COVID-19 is extended to 5 October.

Share your hospital's exemplary actions and responses in the combat against the #COVID19 pandemic and get the recognition that you deserve.

One of the best ways to honour the sacrifices made in the fight against COVID-19 is to learn, improve and transform our healthcare institutions and system to be safer, stronger, and better for our patients, staff, and population.
 
The IHF ‘Beyond COVID-19’ Task Force has published a series of infographics setting out areas where hospitals can embrace new ways of delivering healthcare, whilst responding to the evolving coronavirus pandemic. 

The Private Hospitals Association mission is to contribute to improving the health of the community and individuals through supporting members to provide safe healthcare services that are globally accredited.  The main objectives that PHA is focused on are the following;

• Enhance the quality and safety of hospitals’ services provided to patients.
• Improve the financial efficiency of member hospitals.
• Improve the services provided by the association to the members through improving the financial resources and by increasing the number of staff.
• Contribute in the preparation of regulations and policies to be more adequate to the needs of the PHA Members.
• Increase the hospitals’ and medical centers’ capabilities to become competitive internationally.
• Improve the role of the PHA and its members in serving the community.

In 2014 Jordan represented by the association won the Best Medical Tourism Destination Award, which was awarded by the International Medical Travel Journal. The award is granted to the medical tourism destination with unparalleled quantities of medical services to patients from outside Jordan.

Dr. Al-Hammouri was the president of the Global Healthcare Travel Council (GHTC) from 2015 until 2017, during his presidency he shared with them Jordan’s success story in becoming a medical tourism destination. He is one of the founding members and he is now the honorary president of GHTC. The Global Healthcare Travel Council consists of 42 member countries that are all health travel destinations.

During his presidency term, in the Global Healthcare Travel Forum, Dr. Al-Hammouri announced Amman Declaration which aims to expand healthcare travel globally in 8 segments which are; medical tourism, dental tourism, spa tourism, wellness tourism, culinary tourism, sports tourism, assisted residential tourism and accessible tourism.

Positioned as a gateway to the Middle East, Jordan is one of the world’s most desirable locations for investment in health and wellness. One of Jordan’s primary assets in the medical services sector is its workforce, as the country boasts over 28,000 physicians most of whom are board-certified in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada or other European countries and a growing team of nurses that are experienced in state-of-the-art patient care.

Another asset in the Jordanian health and wellness sector is its competitive cost structure, which offers medical services at a low-risk platform to serve the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) market.

The healthcare system is well prepared for emergencies that were noticeable during the Arab Spring; since Jordan treated more than 150,000 wounded and sick patients from a number of neighboring Arab countries in a record period, and no infectious disease spread among these patients although they came from the infected population because of wars in their countries.

Jordan’s success is due to the importance it has placed on the development of quality healthcare as 9.3% of GDP is spent on healthcare. These expenditures include upgrading the medical facilities and equipment in addition to providing training opportunities for the healthcare providers which is reflected positively on the medical services provided for Jordanian and non-Jordanian patients.

The Private Hospitals Association (PHA) is a voluntary, non-profit organization that was established in 1984, representing 58 private hospitals and medical centers in Jordan. The association’s vision is to assist members in providing integrated high-quality healthcare services to their patients and building the hospitals’ capacity to become globally competitive.

PHA represents the private hospitals in various councils including; High Health Council, Jordanian Medical Council, Jordanian Nursing Council, Health Care Accreditation Council, Royal Health Awareness Society, Jordanian Air Ambulance Center and recently the National Epidemiology Committee to manage COVID-19 crisis in Jordan.

Since 2004, I’ve Chaired the Private Hospitals Association in Jordan, a significant improvement in the performance of the private hospitals was seen and this was awarded by achieving the “Best Practice” certificate twice and the “Seal of Excellence” by the King Abdullah II Award for Excellence. In addition, the award “Jordan as the best medical tourism destination for the year 2014”.