Speaker Interview

Dr. Asem Mansour, Chief Executive Officer/ Director General, King Hussein Cancer Center

Q-1 Please share some strategic approached deployed at KHCC to promote the utilization of health informatics and excel growing patient experience agenda?

KKHCC interest in patient experience and healthcare informatics is immense. Thus we have collaborated with the University of The West of England -Bristol in a number of PhD dissertations in computer engineering specializing in Cancer Care Informatics and utilizing King Hussein Cancer Center as a model to improve patient experience and healthcare in general. The first International Cancer Care Informatics Conference was recently held in Amman Jordan. The conference showcased the multitude of how healthcare informatics has reached from institution from all over the world, in addition to presenting the results of collaborative effort by Kings Hussein Cancer Center and the University of The West of England –Bristol to tackle this important subject. Focusing on the importance of utilizing the healthcare informatics, we are launching a Masters Degree in Cancer Care Informatics partnering with the University of Jordan and the University of The West of England –Bristol to give the next generations the tools to improve patient experience. Example include the System of System application to improve the process of admission and discharges at the center with patient centered focus.

Q-2 What are some of the leadership engagement strategies implemented at KHCC in the pursuit of achieving patient-centricity?

From the time KHCC was established patient centered care was interwoven within our strategies, policies and practices. Most notably the fact that each patient has a unified treatment plan based on a medical judgment of a Multidisciplinary Team including all physicians and from different areas like surgery, oncology, radiology, radiotherapy, pathology and auxiliaries based on the type of disease, all taking a unified decisions following the latest evident based guidelines. As part of our core strategic direction of person-centered care, recently the center initiated the Patient Centered Care Committee which involves patients and parents of pediatric patients tackling all issues relating to improving all aspects related to patient experience.
We have also worked extensively on lean projects, focusing on improving specific areas for improvement based on patient satisfaction surveys, complaints, suggestions and notes.

Q-3 Share your recipe of embedding an organisation culture from top-down to bottom-up that is truly empathetic and patient-centric and is not competing with financial objectives?

Healthcare is a very stressful work environment, with a lot of non-value added activities caregivers can focus on the important issues for the patient, by eliminating these activities. Also by looking the complete journey of patients, we can focus on their experience. We have also employed our Lean projects to maximized employee involvement though their active participation and engagement to improve work and focus on the patient experience throughout the whole healing journey.

Q-4 How do you think the Congress will impact healthcare providers in aim achieve patient excellence and drive patient centricity and why is such a platform important for the healthcare sector in the region?

Sharing experiences from institutions and countries around the world and in the region, taking into consideration similar cultural factors that are unique to the middle east population in addition to learning from best practices from all over the world.