Expanding Networks

I believe in the power of professional networks. I have cultivated mine to not only support my career but to give back to the healthcare quality community. With NAHQ becoming a more global organization, I decided I need to expand my network as well. So, I searched for healthcare quality professionals in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), the country with the most Certified Professionals in Healthcare Quality® (CPHQ) outside of the United States. Among all the impressive individuals working in the UAE, Monica Jacobs’ profile stood out. I connected with her via LinkedIn and she accepted my invitation. What I learned again through my conversations with Monica is that our common experiences are the ties that bind us in this community of practice advancing healthcare quality across the globe.

Monica Jacobs, RN, CPHQ, MSc, MBA, FISQua, CPHRM, CMQ/OE, was born just outside of Johannesburg in the Republic of South Africa. Starting her career as a bedside nurse, Monica has never lost her passion for patient care. As her career progressed, she moved to Saudi Arabia and later the UAE where she experienced a paradox shift in the way she looked at patient care. Monica was practicing under the tutelage of Linda Haskins, DON, CPHQ, MSN, PhD, at the Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi when she was invited to join the quest to close the gap between clinical and quality care. With her commitment to reducing variability, Linda formed a nursing quality department. Monica was selected to be a part of this new department because she too had come to believe that sharing data to increase transparency and improve care was vital. Monica was given the green light to work with nursing directors to implement a new KPI program moving her career in a new direction.

While Monica, Linda and the new nursing quality team were well experienced in direct patient care, they knew they also needed to develop their healthcare quality competencies. This led the team to NAHQ and CPHQ. According to Monica, “The CPHQ really spoke to something in me. I did not realize that a passion for improving patient safety, making change, and applying new knowledge could lead to such positive outcomes. I learned so much studying for my CPHQ and was able to take my knowledge back to the bedside.” One example of this is the nursing process review tool Monica and her colleagues developed. The tool helps nurses understand what has gone wrong with patient care and how to prevent it from happening again.

As Monica continued to immerse herself in improving quality care, she became increasingly sensitive to the operational pressures experienced by healthcare systems. This led her to pursue her MBA in healthcare administration. Monica reflects: “From an operational perspective, we must balance the numbers with patient safety. With my knowledge of how the numbers work, I can help leadership understand that quality is a negative hit to the bottom line only when we actually fail to invest in quality.”

Monica believes that the CPHQ put her on a learning journey that continues today. Beyond receiving her  MBA, she is also a Certified Manager of Quality/Organizational Excellence (American Society for Quality) and a Certified Professional in Healthcare Risk Management (American Society for Health Care Risk Management). “CPHQ gave me the confidence to keep learning and advancing.”

Today, Monica is the assistant vice president clinical governance for NMC Healthcare, the largest private healthcare company in the UAE. Clinical governance is the mechanism by which healthcare organizations can hold themselves accountable for improving quality care and care standards. Monica explains that, over the last 10 years, regulatory requirements in the UAE have increased significantly. The data and documentation that must be produced can be overwhelming. Here again, the CPHQ has helped Monica make it all work.

However, CPHQ is not the only NAHQ program that Monica has pressed into service for her organization. In commissioning a new hospital, she had the opportunity to create a quality function from the ground up, much like her mentor Linda Haskins did years ago. Lucky for Monica, she not only had the toolkit provided by CPHQ, but she was also able to leverage the NAHQ Healthcare Quality Competency Framework® by developing programs aligned with its domains and competencies.

CPHQ is a standard for healthcare quality professionals and organizations practicing in the UAE. In speaking with Monica, I am also hopeful that NAHQ’s expanding portfolio of products and services will engage professionals and organizations more directly with NAHQ as a partner in their success. There is a world of opportunity to improve healthcare quality and we are here for it.

Emmett T. Ervin, MPA, CPHQ
NAHQ President