Royal Bahrain Hospital wins most-coveted awards in Healthcare Asia Awards

It was hailed as Hospital of the Year and awarded for Patient Safety Initiative of the Year.

Since establishing itself as the leading multi-speciality hospital in the Kingdom of Bahrain’s private healthcare space in 2011, the Royal Bahrain Hospital (RBH) has strived to deliver quality care.

It balances the high expectations of patients through a team of dedicated medical professionals who bring experience and expertise, world-class treatment protocols, cutting-edge facilities, and advanced technologies and digitalization.

Located in the medical cluster Salmaniya, it has successfully carved a niche for itself in the country’s premium segment and has emerged as a popular healthcare destination for the people of Bahrain and the Eastern province of Saudi Arabia.

In this year’s Healthcare Asia Awards, it was crowned Hospital of the Year for its various efforts and services throughout the years. It was also given the Patient Safety Initiative of the Year award for prioritizing and innovating its protocol for patient safety within the hospital.

With its theme of Recognising Trailblazing Initiatives in the Healthcare Sector, the awards programme aims to honour hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare providers that have risen above the challenges and made a remarkable impact on their patients, most especially amidst the massive disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

For its Hospital of the Year award, RBH was recognised as a patient-centric institution that has always kept the community at the core of its operational philosophy. It works closely with key government and private organizations through a variety of programs and initiatives aimed at spreading wellness and creating awareness.

Noteworthy alliances and partnerships include the ones with Royal Humanitarian Foundation (RHF), Bahrain Down Syndrome Society, Bahrain Special Olympics, Bahraini Society for the Elderly, KHK Mixed Martial Arts, Bahrain Women’s Association, American Ladies Association, Sneha Program (Indian Ladies Association), Rugby & Football Club, Bahrain Tennis Club, Bahrain Weightlifting Association, and many others.

RBH has been actively working with its partners in conducting awareness events and lectures in addition to supporting high-profile sporting and cultural events through emergency, ambulances and paramedic services. It’s also at the forefront of supporting corporate and industrial sectors with round-the-clock medical services such as ambulances and emergency services including resuscitation and life support.

In the last two years, RBH worked closely with the Government-led National Medical Task Force for Combatting the Coronavirus (COVID-19) and supported the efforts in more ways than one.

It expanded its network and established its RBH Medical Center (RBHMC) in Saar with the sole objective of bringing its expertise and services closer to the people.

For facilities, developments include adding the Mammogram (Hologic 3D) to its range of radiology services in addition to new MRI (1.5 Tesla), CT (128 Slice), Portable Xray, and C-Arm (3D).

RBH also launched its independent Dialysis Center with a program to support kidney transplants.

Apart from these achievements, RBH has become truly world-class for its services –and this was the basis for the Patient Safety Initiative of the Year award.

Its various efforts were based on the hospital’s priority to focus on patient safety through the implementation of best practices and innovation.

RBH identified that in any challenging system, a process step requiring human intervention has the risk of human error. For its risk mitigation, it has turned to control the possibility of faults in its healthcare delivery process.

One project is the introduction of Smart Pumps. The old pumps that were used in the ICU were showing the infusion rate in ml/min, which is a volume instead of a dose. This increases the risk of errors since the physician will give the medication order in micrograms or milligrams and not as a volume.

This project reduced the chance for dosing errors, especially during conversion from quantity to volume, thus preventing exceeding the maximum recommended dose, and it help the clinical staff including the Physician, Clinical Pharmacist, and ICU nurses identify the patient’s current status according to what side of inotrope dose the patient is on.

Another project is the Computerized Physician Order Entry (CPOE). The challenge in the implementation of CPOE was dealing with the customisation of requirements and acceptance of change by care providers.

RBH incorporated medication reconciliation, duplication alerts, and allergy alerts to launch this project.

As a result, it became one of the contributing factors to why the hospital was able to reduce medication errors in 2022. Today, RBH’s current medication error rate is 1% which is at par with international standards.