Dr. Abdulaziz bin Ibrahim AlRajhi, Chief Executive Officer of King Khaled Eye Specialist Hospital, received Vision Excellence Award of the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness.

The Vision Excellence awards recognize achievements of people whose vision, motivation, commitment and quality of their work contributed to achieve VISION 2020 program goals during the last twenty years.

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KKESH participates in a workshop under sponsorship of the Department of the Care of Persons with Disabilities. This is one of national transformation program initiatives to enable persons with disabilities and enhance their role in the Kingdom. The workshop under title of “Health Services for Persons with Disabilities Between Realty and Hope” is made to raise the level of medical services provided for this distinguished category.

Two episodes of the Awareness Minute program were launched. This is a program made by KKESH. It does not exceed one minute and addresses issues related to ophthalmology to the public.

Are smart devices bad for health?

Are sunglasses necessary to wear?

In line of KKESH celebration of 2020 World Sight Day, KKESH has started organizing many activities and events to raise the level of health awareness among community members about eye diseases and the diseases that lead to blindness that can be avoided and how to prevent these diseases.

In cooperation with King Khalid International Airport, KKESH has raised many awareness messages on airport lounge screen relating eye diseases and how to prevent them. Similarly, it has raised another group of awareness messages relating Cataract- Amblyopia - Glaucoma and ways of treatment and prevention at Al-Nakheel Mall - Khurais Mall - Al Hamra Mall - Al Salam Mall.

In a continuation of our interest to activate the role of social responsibility, KKESH has entered into a community partnership with Dr. Cafe to be the official sponsor of the World Sight Day under the supervision of KKESH to raise public awareness about this day. Dr. Cafe has contributed in printing a custom code on the mugs as any customer can scan the code with his phone to reach an integrated educational content related to eye diseases and how to prevent them.

KKESH social media platforms have also been harnessed to raise and emphasize this awareness through periodic publications. In addition, a live broadcast was presented by some of KKESH ophthalmologists relating children's eye diseases and glaucoma, and ways to treat and to prevent them.In order to interact and communicate with international bodies, KKESH participated with a set of its photos in the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness. KKESH obtained an advanced position. Within the same framework, KKESH held a meeting for the Keratoconus Patients Group through Zoom App.

KKESH annual participation on Sight International Day comes as result of its societal responsibility in raising awareness among community members about eye diseases and ways to prevent them.

Among package of international health events, KKESH is keen to participate in these events in order to raise the level of health awareness in the community about eye diseases, in order to eliminate the causes of visual impairment that can be avoided either with treatment or prevention.

One of the services provided by King Khalid Eye Specialist Hospital is “Awsefha” Twitter account. The account provides access to awareness content and data for blind and visually impaired individuals by describing images and movies.

The first episode of Eye Podcast was launched under the title "The Invisible Visitor."

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https://eye-podcast.com/subscribe

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.