ISSN: 2577-2953
Assessment of Employee Health Program at Ministry of Health Hospitals in Saudi Arabia
Authors:
Hail M Abdaley, Ahmed M Hakawi, Mervat M Eldalatony* and Hanan M Hathout
Background: Due to lack of formal employee health services in ministry of health- Saudi Arabia and high exposure risk of health care workers. So it was a necessity to establish a comprehensive medical program to track occupational diseases, injuries and work place exposures.
Methods: Assessment of employee health program in all MOH hospitals was carried out from January to march 2017 using survey prepared and circulated via email to staff responsible for employee clinics of all facilities at all health regions and governorates of Saudi Arabia that joined Ministry Of Health-Saudi Arabia's employee health program since its implementation in 2012.
Results: Highest percent of employee health clinics was established in hospitals with a bed capacity ≥400 beds. Eighty percent of the clinics are fully supervised by infection control department, 81.3 % have one or more full time staff working in it, 91% have employee medical records either in hard or soft forms and 77.6 % have available equipment and materials necessary for the clinic duties. Services' coverage provided by employee health clinics as coverage of N95 Fit – Test , Post exposure Prophylaxis Medications, Availability of Reporting system (100 & 90 & 70 percent respectively ) with improvement of services with increased bed capacity.
Conclusion: Improvement of employee health services is noticed in hospitals that implement the employee health program as employee health clinics was established in 58% of hospitals , Eighty percent of the clinics are fully supervised by infection control department, most of hospitals have one or more full time staff manage the clinics. Availability of Post exposure Prophylaxis Medications, Reporting system, and Mandatory Vaccination Supply was made available to all MOH' employee clinics especially hepatitis B vaccinations, influenza vaccinations, and meningitis.
Recommendations: Expanding the employee health program to all Ministry of health' health care facilities and even the private sectors, Integration of services at different level to provide all essential vaccines mandated by international agencies to protect the health care workers, Generalization of electronic system for generating employee medical records, Recruitment of more staff to manage the employee health program.
Keywords:
Bloodborne; Pathogen infections; Post exposure; Varicella
