Organizing Committee Member
Dr. Samer Ellahham
Chief Quality Officer for SKMC
American University of Beirut
UAE
Biography
Dr. Ellahham has served as Chief Quality Officer for SKMC since 2009. In his role, Dr. Ellahham has led the development of a quality and safety program that has been highly successful and visible and has been recognized internationally by a number of awards. As Chief Quality Officer and Global Healthcare Leader, Dr. Ellahham has a focus on ensuring that that implementation of this best practices leads to breakthrough improvements in clinical quality, patient safety, patient experience and risk management. Dr. Ellahham is a recognized leader in quality, safety, patient experience, risk management and the use of robust performance improvement in improving healthcare delivery. He serves on a number of US and international committees and advisory bodies. He is the Middle East Regional Chair of the Patient Safety Movement Foundation. Dr. Ellahham is Certified Professional in Healthcare Quality (CPHQ) by The National Association for Healthcare Quality (NAHQ). He is certified in Medical Quality (CMQ) by The American Board of Medical Quality (ABMQ). He is the recipient of the Quality Leadership Award from the World Quality Congress and Awards and the Business Leadership Excellence Award from World Leadership Congress in 2015. He is one the nominees for Safe Care magazine Person of the Year in the United States. Dr. Ellahham is the recipient of prestigious SKMC Infection Prevention Award in 2011 and 2012. He is recognized worldwide for Excellence in infection prevention and control. Dr. Ellahham is Middle East Representative of the JCI Standards Subcommittee and Member on the Editorial Advisory Board of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. He is reviewer of HCAC Cardiac Quality and Safety Standards. Dr. Ellahham has been a champion of the use of Lean, Six Sigma and Change Management to improve healthcare quality. He is Lean Six Sigma Master Black Belted. He was the Leader of the First Pilot International Robust Process Improvement (RPI) project by the Joint Commission Center for Transforming Healthcare and several other similar successful performance improvement projects at SKMC. He is Lead Trainer in TeamSTEPPS Lead Trainer. Dr. Ellahham is certified as EFQM 2013 Model assessor and is leading EFQM Excellence Model at SKMC with great success including winning the prestigious Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Award in 2014, Dubai Quality Award in 2015 and Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Golden Award in 2015. Dr. Ellahham is the Executive SKMC sponsor of the American College of Surgeons National Surgical Quality Improvement Program (ACS NSQIP®) the leading US validated, risk-adjusted, outcomes-based program to measure and improve the quality of surgical care. SKMC is the first multispecialty ACS NSQIP center outside the US. Dr. Ellahham led the publication of, first in the region, annual SKMC outcome books since 2011. He is a strong believer in transparency in health care and external reporting. Dr. Ellahham is a Board-certified internist, cardiologist and vascular medicine senior consultant and continues to care for patients. He received his undergraduate degree in biology and his M.D. from the American University of Beirut. He did his fellowship in Cardiology at the Medical College of Virginia (MCV) in USA. After completing his fellowship, Dr. Ellahham worked in Washington DC in several clinical and leadership positions before moving to UAE in 1988. He led the First AHA GWTG Heart Failure Initiative outside US and was the recipient of the AHA GWTG Award in Wash. DC. His clinical passion and expertise is in the field of heart failure management. He demonstrated great skill and experience in the management of patients with heart failure and led a multi-disciplinary team in the care and delivery of advanced therapies to these patients. He has unique abilities to partner and engage local and regional referring providers. He is able to work in a highly matrixed environment, possess strong leadership and organizational skills and have experience to working effectively in a large health system. He is currently Cleveland Clinic Staff and on the Executive Team of The Cleveland Clinic Foundation, in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Dr. Ellahham is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, American College of Chest Physicians, American College of Physicians, and American Heart Association. He is the Eminent Editor of The Journal of Cardiology & Cardiovascular Therapy. In addition, he serves is on the editorial board of the Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, Open Access Journal of Clinical Trials, Hypertension Today Journal and Focus on Hypertension Journal. Dr. Ellahham is a Distinguished Fellow of the New Westminster College in British Columbia, Canada. Dr. Ellahham is an avid researcher; his research includes lean six sigma, change management, innovation, safety, outcomes research, risk management, safe surgery, heart failure, diabetes mellitus, genetics, cardiac imaging, sports and nutrition. He is a recognized world-leader in these fields. He received several research awards including the DuPont Pharmaceuticals Research Award, ACCP 58th Annual Scientific Assembly, Young Investigator Award; the Alfred Soffer Research Award, ACCP 58th Annual Scientific Assembly, Finalist; the First Young Investigator Award 12th, Annual Meeting of the Mediterranean Association of Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery, and the American Heart Association Get with the Guidelines Award. Dr. Ellahham is on the editorial board of Medical Science, Open Journal of Cardiatic Research and was on the editorial board of The Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety. He is also a reviewer for several peer-reviewed journals, including Joint Commission Journal on Quality and Patient Safety, International Journal of Quality & Reliability Management, the Journal of American College of Cardiology, the American Heart Journal, Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, Chest, Circulation, Clinical Cardiology, Chest, Lancet ,Diabetes Care, Archives of Internal Medicine, Endocrinology and Metabolism, European Journal of Heart Failure, Congestive Heart Failure Journal, Journal of Nuclear Cardiology, the Journal of Transplant Coordination, the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and the Southern Medical Journal, European Journal of Innovation Management and The Anatolian Journal of cardiology.
Research Area
Cardiology