A team from Hamad Medical Corporation (HMC) Centre for Patient Experience and Employee Engagement (CPESE) has been recognised for its efforts to create a better experience for patients.

The team recently won two awards at HMC’s annual employee recognition event, the Stars of Excellence Awards. The award recognised the group’s success in improving patient experience by unifying its service under a single customer service brand – Nesma’ak. The name Nesma’ak, which means ‘We are Listening’, was chosen to reflect HMC’s focus on better engagement with patients and the public.

The Nesma’ak Customer Service Programme was launched in June 2016 and included the creation of a five-digit patient call centre telephone number – 16060 – to make it easier for patients and visitors to remember should they need to ask questions, change their appointments, make comments, or provide feedback.

Since the programme’s launch, patient feedback has increased by more than 500% and over the last 15 months, a total of 8,745 written comments and 3,537 written compliments have been received.

Nasser Al Naimi, Deputy Chief Quality Officer for the Centre for Patient Experience and Staff Engagement and Co-Director for the Hamad Healthcare Quality Institute said that the programme is a great achievement for HMC with the results of the project exceeding international benchmarks.

Winning two awards encourages our team to work even harder towards making even more improvements and innovations that will expand the quality of healthcare services at HMC, and consequently enhance the patient experience and their level of satisfaction.’

Al Naimi added that patient-centred care is at the heart of everything they do.

By listening to our patients and using our call centre, website, and customer service desks as channels to engage in dialogue with our patients, we are working to ensure patients feel confident in their treatment journey, feel connected to their care teams and engaged in their own care. Our ultimate goal is to deliver the best patient experience possible and we believe the implementation of the Nesma’ak programme is helping us achieve this.’

The Nesma’ak programme has also been recognised internationally, winning awards at the Middle East Customer Experience Conference and Awards 2016. The programme won awards in two categories: ‘Best Implementation of a Customer Experience Programme’ and ‘The Customer Experience Programme of the Year’.

For more information about the Nesma’ak programme, visit the HMC website at hamad.qa.