CEOSPEAK: Ideas and approaches to improve process

How did winning the Dubai Quality Award (DQA) in 2014 benefit Al Dhafra Hospitals?

The DQA excellence framework helped us think of new initiatives and approaches that could be applied in day-to-day business. We looked at the models and came up with ideas to improve our processes. We understood that though our system anticipates and mitigates many of the problems during implementation, sometimes there would be unavoidable setbacks and that not all new approaches would yield results. But thanks to our grounding in a culture of excellence, we have tried to learn from our mistakes.

Winning an award may be a cause for celebration for a few days but implementing action plans based on feedback reports will yield long-term benefits for the organisation.

Moreover, every organisation needs to evaluate their process frequently to try to come up with creative and innovative solutions to sustain in the changing business environment.

We strongly believe that excellence is a journey. And awards are certainly not the end of that journey. So we don’t rest on our laurels.

Moreover, every organisation needs to evaluate their process frequently to try to come up with creative and innovative solutions to sustain in the changing business environment.

How was the experience of applying for and winning the Dubai Human Development Appreciation Award (DHDAA) in 2017?

Al Dhafra has always focused on engaging employees in organisational developments. It is one of the leading organisations among Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA) that supports special needs people, women empowerment and Emiratisation.

When the application process for Dubai Human Development Award was initiated, a comprehensive internal assessment according to the framework requirements helped to identify the gaps, which were addressed effectively to ensure we met the requirements of the DHDA framework.

A major challenge was comparing our internal measures with industry standards. However, with the help of the framework, we identified more key measures and got the opportunity to compare our internal measures with industry measures through EBM benchmarks.

The win was a result of our commitment to provide high-quality, accessible healthcare services and was achieved through collaboration, dedication and efficient efforts in one direction.

direction.

How did the DHDAA win help develop your HR and training initiatives?

We understood that developing fruitful HR and training initiatives will give us a great chance to re-win DHDA, so we focused more on the criteria of DHDA.

Winning DHDAA boosted the morale of our employees, especially when they realised that we were comparable to other high-performing organisations.

What are your plans to retain competitiveness and increase productivity?

Our sustainability and continuous performance improvements come from distributing responsibilities and empowering teams to achieve their targets.

For us to retain competitiveness we have to keep our efforts in monitoring KPIs and increase the reasonable targets and challenges to continue moving forward.

What are the various new initiatives you have introduced in your hospital?

Our team came up with many good innovations such as the Shokran programme. We also launched an innovation lab for gathering innovative ideas as well as transformation programmes including initiatives for employee engagement and increasing revenues.