Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi Receives Three Prestigious Awards at the Middle East Management Excellence Awards

The hospital is recognised for healthcare excellence, providing a wide range of innovative medical services to the region and beyond.

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, part of the M42 network, recently demonstrated its unwavering commitment to healthcare excellence and innovation by securing three prestigious awards—Executive of the Year, Innovator of the Year, and Team of the Year—in the Healthcare category at the Middle East Management Excellence Awards 2023.

The annual awards programme celebrates outstanding leaders and organisations in the Middle East, acknowledging their dedication and remarkable contributions to their businesses.
Comprising 15 specialised institutes, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi is dedicated to prioritising patients and addressing the region's specific healthcare demands, offering an extensive array of over 50 medical and surgical specialities integrated to provide comprehensive, multidisciplinary complex care for patients in the United Arab Emirates. 

The state-of-the-art facilities at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi seamlessly blend cutting-edge amenities with world-class service standards. This hospital boasts 364 beds, with the capability to expand to 490, spread across five clinical floors, three diagnostic and treatment levels, and 13 floors housing critical and acute inpatient units. 

Against this backdrop of unwavering commitment to excellence in healthcare, Dr Jorge  Guzman, the esteemed CEO of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, emerged as the Executive of the Year in the healthcare category. He led the establishment of two UAE-pioneering service lines: a comprehensive multidisciplinary cancer programme and a lung transplant in the multi-organ transplant programme.

Under his guidance, the hospital achieved the top spot in the UAE on Newsweek's prestigious 'World's Best Hospitals' list in 2022 and extended its dominance to the entire Gulf region in 2023.

Apart from that, Dr Guzman's transformative leadership resulted in an 18.5% increase in the number of patients served in 2022, with an impressive 83% patient satisfaction rate. His commitment to excellence is reflected in the hospital's Magnet accreditation for nursing, the first in the country and the second in the region. Furthermore, his focus on safety and quality led to three consecutive Joint Commission International (JCI) accreditations since 2016, with significant improvements in safety statistics.

For the Innovator of the Year Award, Dr Usman Ahmad, Department Chair of Thoracic Surgery at the Heart, Vascular & Thoracic Institute of Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, was honoured for bringing world-class care closer to home for patients with end-stage lung disease and pulmonary hypertension.
 
Under Dr Ahmad's leadership, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi introduced the pulmonary endarterectomy (PTE) programme, offering complex treatment to patients in the region. His innovative modifications to the surgical technique have made PTE safer and more effective, benefiting patients in the UAE and beyond. The hospital also performed the UAE's first pulmonary thromboendarterectomy, enhancing the quality of life for patients and reducing financial burdens.

Dr Ahmad's contributions extend to the lung transplant programme, which has already helped patients from eight different countries. His team's expertise in donor and organ management has streamlined the transplant process, making Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi a regional centre of expertise for thoracic care and lung transplant.

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi's Access Taskforce was named Team of the Year for its outstanding efforts in enhancing access to world-class healthcare. The Access Task Force was established in 2021 to review access initiatives and address barriers to efficient healthcare delivery.

One of their key achievements was the implementation of a Contact Center model that significantly reduced the communication turnaround time between patients and the hospital from 13 days to just 24 hours. Additionally, the Access Task Forces’ Template Optimization Project improved slot availability and scheduling efficiency, resulting in a 25% increase in Contact Center scheduling and a 52% increase in booking new patient appointments.

Their dedication to optimising templates and enhancing communication led to a record-breaking 79,000 monthly outpatient visits in May 2023, with the lowest no-show rate in the hospital's history at 24%.

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi continues to set the benchmark in healthcare excellence and innovation. These achievements underscore their steadfast commitment to providing world-class care to the people of the UAE and beyond and exemplify the hospital's dedication to patient-centric healthcare, innovation, and operational excellence.

The Middle East Management Excellence Awards is presented by Asian Business Review Magazine. To view the full list of winners, click here. If you want to join the 2024 awards programme and be acclaimed for your company's employee engagements and management initiatives, please contact Jane Patiag at [email protected].