JHAH Earns International Accreditation for Measuring What Matters Most to Patients
October 06, 2026
Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare has achieved Level 1 certification under the ICHOM Accreditation Program for two internationally recognized sets of patient-centered outcome measures – the first and only organization in the Kingdom to be accredited for hip and knee osteoarthritis – proof of its systematic tracking of how patients actually do after treatment.
For a patient, a successful treatment is about more than a completed procedure. It is whether the knee no longer hurts on the stairs, whether the newspaper is readable again, whether everyday life is better than it was. At Johns Hopkins Aramco Healthcare (JHAH), these are outcomes that are systematically measured – and that measurement has now been recognized internationally.
JHAH has received Level 1 accreditation from the International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement (ICHOM) after an independent review of its outcomes measurement work in orthopedics and ophthalmology. The accreditation, valid until September 2029, covers the ICHOM Set of Patient-Centered Outcome Measures for Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis and the ICHOM Set for Cataracts. JHAH is the first and only healthcare organization in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to be accredited for the Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis Set.
ICHOM is a global nonprofit that brings together clinicians, measurement experts and patients to define standard sets of outcomes that matter most to people living with a given condition. It focuses not only on whether a procedure was performed safely but also on whether it relieved pain, restored function and improved quality of life. The accreditation program, launched in 2024, recognizes healthcare organizations at three levels based on how deeply they have embedded outcomes measurement into routine care.
Level 1 certification recognizes organizations that have established systematic collection of these outcomes. Every eligible patient is asked the same standardized questions before and after treatment, and the answers are analyzed to understand how their health and everyday lives have changed.
A journey that began with the patient
JHAH’s outcomes journey began in 2015, when Dr. Mojieb Manzary, Physician Manager, Orthopedics, started collecting patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) from orthopedic patients. The following year, he was among the international group of physicians who developed the ICHOM Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis Set.
“When we started collecting patient-reported outcomes in Orthopedics in 2015, the aim was simple: to know, from the patient’s own account, whether a knee replacement had given them back their life,” said Dr. Manzary.
“Being part of the group that developed the ICHOM Hip and Knee Osteoarthritis Set the following year showed me how much stronger that information becomes when it is standardized and comparable across the world. Seeing JHAH accredited against that same set a decade on is a milestone for our team and, more importantly, for our patients.”
In 2023, the initiative was formalized as an organization-wide quality improvement program under the Quality and Data Analytics Division, with PROMs collection integrated into JHAH’s EPIC electronic health record and orthopedics serving as the model for other clinical services. The cataract program followed, with the patient-reported outcome measure built into EPIC workflows in 2024 and a multidisciplinary team established to strengthen data collection and make it sustainable. In April 2026, JHAH partnered with CAPADEV, a value-based healthcare implementation partner, to pursue accreditation and align the program with ICHOM’s requirements. CAPADEV’s platform is used to collect the data and run the analytics.
For the accreditation, JHAH enrolled every eligible patient: 257 patients who underwent knee replacement for osteoarthritis in Dhahran since 2025, with a PROMs response rate of 74%, and 279 patients who underwent cataract surgery in 2026. In orthopedics, the measures capture pain, joint function and overall quality of life at set points before and after surgery. In ophthalmology, they capture how well patients see and manage everyday tasks after their procedure.
ICHOM’s reviewers noted the maturity of the hip and knee program and the strong foundation being built through the cataracts implementation, including the infrastructure and processes JHAH is putting in place to extend outcomes measurement across the organization.
“The accreditation confirms that we are asking the right questions,” said Dr. Saeed Yami, Chief Quality and Patient Safety Officer at JHAH.
“When a patient tells us six months after knee surgery that they are walking without pain, or that they can read again after cataract surgery, that is the outcome we are accountable for. ICHOM gives us a standardized, internationally comparable way to measure it, and this recognition is proof that the foundation we have built is robust.”
A multidisciplinary achievement
The achievement reflects a multidisciplinary effort. The Quality and Data Analytics Division, under its Director Dr. Jalal Al Alwan, coordinated both applications, with clinical leadership from the Orthopedics team under Dr. Manzary and the Ophthalmology team under Dr. Abdulelah Al Abdullah, Physician Manager, and data collection embedded in daily practice by the nursing and case coordination teams under Chief Nursing Officer Dr. Hani Ayyad.
“This recognition reflects a true multidisciplinary effort and marks an important milestone in our value-based healthcare journey,” said Dr. Al Alwan.
“Our PROMs team turned thousands of individual data points into meaningful insight about what our care actually delivers for patients, and our clinical and nursing colleagues made data collection part of everyday practice. That is what we intend to build on.”
Building on the foundation
Level 1 is the first of three tiers in the ICHOM Accreditation Program. JHAH is now building on this foundation, extending standardized outcomes measurement to additional areas of care across the organization, including diabetes, pain management and back pain. The direction is clear: to keep measuring healthcare by what matters most – the outcomes patients experience.
Anyone who would like to learn more about how JHAH measures and improves patient outcomes is welcome to get in touch. Existing JHAH patients with questions about their care can reach their care team via MyChart.