KFSH-Jeddah wins Saudi National Patient Safety Award for emotional safety

King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah received the 2026 National Patient Safety Award in the Emotional Safety category from Saudi Health Minister Fahad AlJalajel. The win highlights a 19-month effort to improve workplace culture, raise employee engagement and strengthen patient safety and care quality.

Why it matters: - The award recognizes a workplace-safety strategy designed to improve patient safety by strengthening employee participation, teamwork and communication. - Higher emotional safety can affect care quality, staff engagement and the patient experience. - The win adds to KFSH’s broader reputation in regional and global healthcare rankings.

What happened: - H.E. Fahad AlJalajel, Saudi Arabia’s Minister of Health, presented King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre in Jeddah with the National Patient Safety Award 2026. - KFSH received the award in the Emotional Safety category. - The recognition was tied to a strategy that encouraged employees to identify improvement opportunities and turn them into patient-safety initiatives.

The details: - The strategy took 19 months to develop. - KFSH rolled it out in three phases. - The hospital used periodic surveys to measure emotional safety and the workplace environment. - Survey findings were analyzed and converted into action steps. - The resulting initiatives focused on teamwork, communication and work-life balance. - Survey response rates rose from 56% to 93% during the project. - The project also used regular surveys to assess psychological safety and workplace culture, identify key challenges and set improvement priorities. - Based on those findings, KFSH launched initiatives to strengthen teamwork and communication, promote fairness and support work-life balance. - Executive leadership backed the effort, and employees took an active role in the process. - The Saudi Patient Safety Center framed the award as part of its effort to recognize innovative projects that improve healthcare quality, promote best practices and support continuous improvement across the healthcare sector.

Between the lines: - The award signals that patient safety is being linked more directly to staff experience and workplace culture. - The jump in survey participation suggests the initiative may have improved trust and engagement inside the hospital. - KFSH is also using the award to reinforce its standing as a leading healthcare institution beyond this single project. - KFSH has been ranked first in the Middle East and Africa and 12th globally among the world’s top 250 academic medical centers for 2026. - Brand Finance named KFSH the most valuable healthcare brand in the Kingdom and the Middle East for 2026. - Newsweek listed KFSH among the World’s Best Hospitals, World’s Best Smart Hospitals and World’s Best Specialized Hospitals for 2026.

What's next: - KFSH is likely to build on the emotional safety strategy with further workplace and patient-care improvements. - The hospital’s leadership now has a high-profile example of a staff-engagement model that can be expanded or refined. - The Saudi Patient Safety Center is expected to continue highlighting projects that show measurable gains in care quality and continuous improvement.