Samer Ellahham, MD, CPHQ, CMQ, EFQM, FACP, FACC, FAHA, FCCP
Middle East Representative of the JCI Standards Subcommittee
Regional Chair, Middle East, Patient Safety Movement Foundation
Chief Quality Officer, Sheikh Khalifa Medical City
Cleveland Clinic Care Giver
Senior Cardiovascular Consultant
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 innovative 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 Belt Certified. He is an American Society of Quality (ASQ) trainer in lean and six sigma both green and black belt.
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, Beirut, Lebanon.

Dr. Ellahham 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 2008. He led the First AHA GWTG Heart Failure Initiative outside US and was the recipient of the AHA GWTG Award in Wash. DC. He is the