First Dubai Holding entity Dubai Healthcare City gets ISO 9001:2000 certification

"We are extremely pleased to have obtained the international ISO certification. We have always said we are building a world-class institutions and this claim has been supported by the grant of the global certification that recognises and acknowledges that Dubai Healthcare City is second to none and is in full compliance with international norms," said Mohammed Al Gergawi, CEO of Dubai Holding.

"What is all the more gratifying is that the ISO certification has been awarded to us even as we are in the process of building our facilities, infrastructure and processes. This tells our peers and partners, our clients and customers, that we are a global institution that has built in quality literally from the ground up," Al Gergawi added.

The Dubai Healthcare City has obtained ISO 9001:2000 certification for six key aspects of its operations. These include Sales, Marketing, Post-Graduate Medical Education, Issue of Commercial Licenses, Healthcare Facilities' Licenses and Construction Permits.

Competitive edge
"Gaining the much sought after ISO certification would provide a competitive edge for Dubai Healthcare City. It will lay an excellent foundation for managing the business processes at DHCC, which we will ensure comply with the requirements of ISO 9001:2000," Al Gergawi said.

The Chief Executive of Dubai Holding said: "Impact for the business partners will be in terms of enhancing and providing assurance to the customers that Dubai Healthcare City is a quality organisation and that there are processes in place to ensure client and key stakeholder satisfaction. Part of the ISO compliance is that we record client dissatisfaction to, which in effect, would tell us where we are going wrong so we can immediately an d effectively find a solution to the bottleneck."

"Another major point for us gaining the ISO Award is that Dubai Healthcare City is the first Dubai Holding company to get its management systems certified to the ISO 9001:2000 programme," said Al Gergawi, a firm believer in quality and quality management systems.

Quality policy
He pointed out that ISO 9001:2000 certification provides an excellent fit to the DHCC's core values and its comprehensive Quality Policy. This will ensure an assurance that DHCC will consistently deliver excellent levels of service performance to DHCC customers.

He emphasised that the award of the ISO 9001:2000 certification is only a step at the starting of the journey of continuous business excellence.

"It will provide a firm and solid foundation for embracing world-class business excellence models to make DHCC a role-model benchmarked quality organization in the future. This is just another example of Dubai Healthcare City's commitment to excellence in service standards and quality," Al Gergawi stated.

The ISO 9000:2001 is primarily concerned with "quality management". This applies to what an organisation does to fulfill customer's quality requirements and provision of applicable regulatory requirements, while aiming to enhance customer satisfaction and achieve continual improvement of its performance in pursuit of these objectives.

The International Organization for Standardisation (ISO) was established in 1947 and is an association of some 149 National Standards Bodies, each of which represents its own country. ISO employs a system of Technical Committees, Sub-committees and Working Groups to develop International Standards. Besides the National Standards Bodies, ISO permits other international organisations that develop standards to participate in its work, by accepting them as liaison members. ISO works in accordance with an agreed set of rules of procedure, the ISO/IEC Directives, which also include requirements on the presentation of standards.