COVID-19 committee, which is made up of all concerned departments under the leadership of the Chief Executive Officer, conducts a daily meeting and continues to communicate remotely around the clock to follow up on all that is agreed upon and what is new by eye heroes.

The precautionary measures taken immediately and proactively during the beginning of the crisis include the following:

1. Postpone all non-urgent appointments and operations until further notice, along with communicate with the concerned patients, clarify the reasons and answer their questions.

 

2. Work towards reducing the visit to ER for non-urgent cases by providing a remote answering service through a unified number announced on the social media.

 

3. Inpatients visit has been suspended, except those who are allowed through the medical staff and provide tablet devices for patients who do not have smart devices to communicate with their families.

 

4. Limit and minimize all hospital entrances. In addition to, maintain a limited number of people with doing the necessary examinations for them.

 

5. The hospital entrances used during this crisis are equipped with thermal cameras, a sophisticated technology equipped with face recognition to measure temperature, and its capability of measuring a temperature of 25 persons per second.
6. Rearrange medical teams as needed for each subspecialty to reduce the number of clinics requiring emergency screening.

 

7. Health Education Committee publishes various written, audio-visual information and guidelines related to the crisis, especially for patients with eye diseases, including the blind and visually impaired individuals.

 

8. Coordinate psychological support lectures for all hospital staff in both Arabic and English to deal with this crisis remotely by highly qualified consultants.

 

9. Ensure that there are all personal protective equipment (PEE) for medical staff and patients such as masks, hand sanitizer, googles and gowns at the time of examination.

 

10. Prevent ingress of any companion with the patient unless necessary to reduce congestion within the clinics.

 

11. To take precautionary measures for KKESH’s Housing Compound.

 

12. Close all gathering places in the hospital, such as restaurants, coffee shops and unimportant waiting rooms.

 

13. Rearrange the waiting areas and put “Leave Enough Distance” posters.

 

14. Close all prayer rooms inside wards and provide inpatients with disposable prayer mats.

 

15. Provide the main prayer room of clinics with instructions to use disposable prayer mats and leave enough distance with the presence of a supervisor to make sure of following the instructions, cleaning and disinfecting the place periodically.

 

16. Provide all self-service machines, whether electronic or banking services, with hand sanitizers.

 

17. To ensure that security guards and housekeepers are trained and educated about the most important points of sterilization and hand hygiene to protect themselves and others.

 

18. To open several channels to re-fill and order medications in advance in order to prepare them before coming to get them or send them to the patient.

 

19. Work on activating virtual clinics for all sub-specialties.

 

20. Work on a virtual meeting with all staff by COVID-19 committee, update them with all procedures and receive their questions and suggestions.

 

21. All academic activities continue to be remotely while ensuring quality as much as possible.
22. Continue to encourage all staff around the clock at the hospital and instill a sense of responsibility and enthusiasm in them.

 

23. Quarantine all staff coming from affected countries, follow-up their conditions by a specialized medical team and provide them with all their needs by the operating team.

 

24. Train staff on infection prevention and control standards.

 

25. Utilize staff free time while the reducing of clinic numbers by reviewing patients' records.

 

26. Create a Command Center.

 

27. Sterilization of the hospital according to the highest standards to ensure the safety of patients and staff.

 

28. Activate remote work platforms.

 

 

KKESH has been awarded Stage 7 on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) by HIMSS for the second time consecutively, becoming the first hospital in Middle East to achieve this global recognition.

KKESH has achieved a great success in implementing Stage 7 standards, as it passed the evaluation process without any comments. Stage 7 is considered the highest level in HIMSS.

According to this classification, KKESH has achieved all the requirements for Stage 7 by implementing and using IT in all medical records, clinical services, laboratory, imaging, pharmacy, medical documentation, detecting dispensing errors and dealing with them, as well as using IT in analyzing medical data to enhance making decision, facilitate and speed up the processes, and increase revenue from available resources. 

His Excellency Dr. Abdulaziz AlRajhi, CEO at KKESH, said that the hospital has been awarded Stage 7 on EMRAM by HIMSS as a part of hospital strategies to transform into a smart hospital in order to achieve one of  Saudi 2030 Vision and  National Transformation Program goals and objectives.

AlRajhi added that the support and attention of the wise leadership to the health sector contributed to overcome all obstacles and provide support to the health sector to provide and improve its services to all citizens.

He also explained that the constant follow-up and contact from H.E. Minister of Health contributed to the hospital’s success in implementing many programs and plans, especially in improving electronic services to provide easier and more advanced services to patients.

The CEO stated that the hospital achievement was as a result of all hospital’s staff efforts which prove that they are highly qualified and competent.

“The hospital is witnessing significant transformation in improving performance, applying the rules of organizational change management, digital transformation, increasing the standards level of providing medical services and benefiting from global expertise and experiences in this field to be a pioneer in the Saudi health sector, in which Vision 2030 has developed an integrated strategy to move to a new stage of working methods and the concept of providing health service," AlRajhi said. 

It is worth mentioning that HIMSS is one of the world’s leading societies which measures healthcare facilities digital maturity relative to their EMR capabilities, their ability to improve patient experience and the quality of health services provided to patients.  A limited number of healthcare facilities worldwide were able to achieve Stage 7 validation.

 

 

 

King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital (KKESH) has won three Patient Experience Excellence Awards (Ihsan) launched by the Ministry of Health. The awards were given by Dr. Tawfiq bin Fawzan AlRabiah, Minister of Health, during the ceremony held in MOH yesterday on this occasion.

Dr. Abdulaziz Ibrahim AlRajhi, KKESH Chief Executive Officer, has won award of "The Most Influential Leaders” for supporting patient experience. KKESH has won also award of “The Best Improvement Project” for improving and organizing electronic healthcare system of ER patients. In addition to award of “The Highest Score on Patient Experience Measurement Program” for achieving the highest satisfaction rate of healthcare services provided for one-day surgery patients.

 

Dr. Abdulaziz Al Rajhi has won the award because of his leading role, continuous support to improve patient experience as well as his constant initiatives to raise the level of patient satisfaction. KKESH has won award of “The Best Improvement Project” for developing and organizing electronic healthcare system of ER patients. Dr. Saleh AlOthaimeen, Chairman of Comprehensive Care, has indicated that this project was implemented during 2019 and resulted in high level of patient satisfaction through MOH Patient Experience Measurement Program. Patient satisfaction rate has increased in the first half of 2019 from (74) % to (80.98%) at the end of February 2020.

 

 

On Thursday 10/03/1441 H, a medical team form KKESH has performed the first surgery in the Middle East for a Saudi female patient (34-year-old) suffering from severe poor vision caused by inherited retinal disease in both eyes using gene therapy.

 

The medical team has stated that the patient had undergone retina surgery in left eye through which it has been used gene therapy directly beneath the retina. This medicine is supposed to fix and improve the vision. Luxturna injection allows patient to move freely in his/her immediate place. 

 

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is the first country in the Medial East and Asia among limited number of American and European states to use this medicine. This revolutionary new treatment is considered to be a global shift in using gene therapy.

 

Dr. Abdulaziz AlRajhi, Chief Executive Officer of KKESH, has stated that this revolutionary new gene therapy is as a result of medical and administrative staff efforts over several months. There was a constant follow-up form H.E. Dr. Tawfiq Al Rabiah to overcome all obstacles in order to obtain this medicine in the hospital. The SFDA and NUPCO support and assistance have played a vital role in obtaining this medicine in record time.

Today morning, the surgery has been performed for the first time in the Middle East in KKESH. KKESH is considered one of the outstanding medical center globally. It has             a long research history and experiences internationally accredited. It has been provided the first gene therapy in the Kingdom from the period Sep 2011 to June 2012 to 6 patients suffering from retinitis pigmentosa (night blindness) through gene injection  and they were followed up. After that, It has been approved the safety of this injection with no side effects.

It is the first approved gene therapy to be used in US and European Union.

Luxturna works by delivering a normal copy of the RPE65 gene directly to retinal cells, which then produce the normal protein that converts light to an electrical signal in the retina to restore vision loss.

 

Rapid Luxturna response varies form one patient to another as some patients need on average 3 months to achieve the best result.

 

 

His Excellency Humaid Al Qutami, Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority has visited KKESH. During the visit,  His Excellency took a tour of a number of the hospital departments and excellence centers. Also, he discussed with Dr. Abdulaziz Al Rajhi, CEO of KKESH, ways to enhance cooperation and benefit from KKESH experiences in providing medical training and education and development of Eye Bank. 

 

 

Without incurring trouble to travel, through telemedicine technology and in cooperation with neonatal services improvement program at MOH, Retinopathy of Prematurity National Program, the first-of-its-kind in the Kingdom, provides care to premature babies in neonatal intensive care units.

On the occasion of the World Diabetes Day, KKESH has participated in many activities such as posting educational and awareness videos on KKESH’s social media accounts, retina screening and imaging, blood sugar test, and organizing awareness corners of diabetes and diabetic retinopathy risks at KKESH.

In addition, KKESH has participated with Musha Riyadh in running event. The Marathon launched on Friday 15th of Oct. The importance of exercises and its positive effect on blood sugar have been discussed by the physicians participated in the event.

 

 

 

KKESH’s Toastmasters Club “Future Vision” has been participated in Quality Speech Contest-Toastmasters, led by Ms. Fatimah AL Zahrani on the occasion of World Quality Day. The contest was organized by Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO) and Saudi Society for Quality. 

 

 

Dr. Abdulaziz Al Rajhi, Chief Executive Officer, said, “Celebrating the 89^th Saudi National Day is an opportunity for all to express love, renew loyalty and feel sense of belonging to this country. We are aware that it is an occasion which requires us to thank Allah, Almighty, for the generosity toward our country and blessing of security, safety, wellbeing, development, renaissance and prosperity.”

“The Kingdom during the era of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud -Allah bless him- is witnessing sustainable development and continuous renaissance in all fields in line with the National Transformation Program  (2030 Vision) led by HRH Prince Muhammed bin Salman, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia experiences significant progress extends to all sectors including health sectors to which the Kingdom accorded continuous care and attention. Due to the huge support of the Kingdom, significant achievements have been accomplished by Dr. Tawfiq Al Rabiah, the Minister of Health.

 

Dr. Abdulaziz Al Rajhi mentioned KKESH march of progress since its establishment unit now stressing that the support of wise leadership helps this project to be at heart of development. Therefore, KKESH has become a reference hospital in providing the best ophthalmic care and a core of developing this field. ”KKESH has started to implement its new strategies, as a part of the general developments that support the health sector march to achieve the 2030 Vision,” he added.

 

Dr. Alrajhi said that, “KKESH follows the highest international standards since its establishment. In addition, it represents a medical, research, and education center in the Kingdom. KKESH is not limited to provide patient care, but also extends to provide education, training, community services, build partnerships and use the latest technologies to achieve facility goals within the framework of international and national standards of quality and safety.

 

 

 

 

The Hospital concluded the campaign "Ebsar Saem", which was conducted in Al Qassim in two phases. The first one was on Friday and Saturday 5-6, and the second one was on Friday and Saturday 12-13 of Ramadan in cooperation with Al Qassim Health cluster.

Dr. Abdulaziz Ibrahim Al Rajhi, Chief Executive Officer, confirmed that the campaign " Ebsar Saem" was succeeded  in performing 246 cataract surgeries at three hospitals in Al Qassim, King Fahad Specialist Hospitals, Buraidah Central Hospital, and King Saud Hospital in Onaizah within four days.

He added that, the campaign was carried out by an integrated team from King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, which included ophthalmologists, nursing, operations and sterilization technicians in addition to health educators. More than ten devices of phacoemulsification (Ultrasonic lens fragmentation) were used and 246 of the latest contact lenses provided by King Khaled Eye Specialist hospital.

At the end of his statement, Dr. Al Rajhi thanked Dr. Mansour Nasser Al Hawassi, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Al Qassim Health cluster, Dr. Sultan Al Shaye, CEO of cluster, hospital directors, managers, medical directors, and all officials and employees for their cooperation and contribution for the campaign success. He also thanked the medical staff for conducting "Ebsar Saem" campaign and other staff who prepared for and provided all campaign requirements in Al Qassim within a short time.