When people seek care, they often need comfort as much as they need answers. Across the Arab world, clinics are working hard to create that balance. Ambulatory services are where it begins, making them a vital link between patients and the support they need. Guiding this space takes leaders who truly care.
One of the leaders guiding this transformation is Maysoon Al Haj Khalil, Director of Ambulatory Clinics at Fakeeh University Hospital – Medicentres. Her journey reflects both personal dedication and the powerful impact women leaders are having across the region. With a combination of clinical insight, operational skill, and a genuine belief in compassionate care, she brings a thoughtful, steady voice to one of the most fast-evolving areas in modern healthcare.
Let’s see how Maysoon Al Haj Khalil is redefining outpatient healthcare leadership!
A Career Shaped by Curiosity and Purpose
Maysoon’s path into healthcare leadership began with a fundamental question about what transforms care into healing. As she describes it, “I began my career driven by a curiosity about how care translates into healing, and over time I found that listening to patients, mentoring teams, and aligning clinical excellence with compassionate service creates the most meaningful impact in healthcare.” This early realization became the backbone of her leadership philosophy, informing every decision she makes as she guides teams, shapes patient experience, and aligns clinical disciplines around shared goals.
Stewarding Ambulatory Excellence
In her role, she oversees the full spectrum of outpatient operations, ensuring that every patient encounter is safe, efficient, and grounded in evidence. She directs clinical operations, quality and safety, staffing models, governance structures, and patient flow strategies across the entirety of ambulatory services. Her responsibilities extend further across Fakeeh Health Care Medicentres, where she shapes strategic direction and daily operations with precision. She ensures high-quality, patient-centered care; optimizes access, wait times, and clinic flow; coordinates multidisciplinary teams; oversees accreditation, patient safety, and quality improvement; and aligns all clinics with digital health and broader innovation initiatives. Budget management, staffing oversight, talent development, and sustaining a culture of accountability and continuous improvement all fall within her remit.
Centering the Patient in Every Decision
For Maysoon Al Haj Khalil, excellence begins with listening to patients, clinicians, and data. She embeds a clinician-led, feedback-driven model that relies heavily on standardized care pathways, evidence-based protocols, and measurable patient-experience metrics. Data analytics, outcome monitoring, and frontline empowerment shape her approach, supported by integrated EHRs and care coordinators who safeguard continuity. Her core belief is reflected in her own words: “My philosophy centers on empathy-driven care, clear communication, and empowering teams to own the patient journey, reinforced by training, feedback loops, and measurable experience metrics.”
This philosophy is translated across clinics by codifying experience standards, mentoring staff, and rewarding behaviors that elevate respect, responsiveness, accessibility, and personalized service. Every touchpoint becomes a moment to build trust and reinforce the essence of patient-centered care.
Navigating Barriers with Determination
Her story as a woman leading in a demanding healthcare environment is marked by resilience and strategic clarity. She acknowledges the challenges candidly: “The most significant challenges as a woman leader have been visibility, balancing multiple priorities, and navigating entrenched norms; I countered them through mentorship, transparent communication, evidence-based decision making, and building diverse leadership benches.” Over time, she also learned to balance influence with presence, address gender biases through results, cultivate supportive allies, and maintain work–life integration without losing sight of her purpose. These experiences have sharpened her ability to lead with empathy and decisiveness, supported by a vision grounded in data, integrity, and transparency.
Driving Innovation in Ambulatory Care
Under Maysoon’s guidance, Fakeeh University Hospital has embraced a forward-looking innovation ethos, particularly within ambulatory services. Digital health, telemedicine, patient portals, same-day diagnostics, AI-assisted scheduling, and AI-driven triage are part of the organization’s new standard. She champions pilot programs, accelerates cross-department adoption, and aligns each transformation with the institution’s strategic objectives. Engaging clinicians and patients early, ensuring safety, and measuring value are central to her approach.
Her strategy for implementing AI is deliberate and structured. It begins with governance and data readiness, mapping workflows, validating data quality, ensuring interoperability with EHRs, and prioritizing high-impact use cases such as documentation automation, clinical decision support, auto-coding, and risk alerts. In the second stage, she focuses on modular pilots that integrate seamlessly with CDS rules, allowing careful measurement of accuracy, time savings, and safety outcomes. Finally, she scales these solutions through training, bias checks, cybersecurity safeguards, and phased rollouts for high-volume or high-risk visits. Establishing an AI steering committee and securing leadership sponsorship are foundational steps to ensure sustainable adoption.
Cultivating Motivated, High-Performing Teams
Leadership, for Maysoon Al Haj Khalil, is an active and visible practice. She leads by example, sets clear expectations, recognizes contributions, and builds incentives that reflect both clinical excellence and operational performance. Psychological safety, transparent goals, and accountable measurement frameworks help her teams thrive. Regular feedback loops, cross-functional collaboration, recognition systems, and targeted development plans reinforce a culture of growth. Lean processes and data-driven decision-making ensure that efficiency never overshadows patient care.
The Rising Influence of Women in Regional Healthcare
Maysoon Al Haj Khalil believes deeply in the expanding role of women across the Arab world’s healthcare ecosystem. As she powerfully notes, “Women leaders will shape healthcare’s future in the Arab world by bringing collaborative, patient-centered, and culturally attuned perspectives, broadening governance, and mentoring the next generation to navigate complexity with resilience.” She sees women as catalysts for innovation, champions of equity, and architects of culturally responsive care delivery models. Their leadership strengthens access, accelerates transformation, and widens the path for the generations that follow.
Guidance for Emerging Leaders
Her advice to young women aspiring to leadership is grounded in her own lived experience. She encourages them to cultivate curiosity, seek diverse operational or clinical experiences, and embrace evidence as a guiding principle. Building networks, developing emotional intelligence, communicating a clear value proposition, and pursuing leadership opportunities early all contribute to long-term growth. Above all, she urges them to lead with integrity, adaptability, and a patient-centered compass, balancing compassion with assertiveness.
