The UAE's Ministry of Health facilities will implement healthcare information technology (HIT) systems from Cerner Corporation that are designed to improve patient care.

Fourteen hospitals and 60 clinics will implement a suite of Cerner Millennium solutions to optimise and automate paper-based processes. iCapital, a UAE-based company and consortium lead, will serve as the prime contractor for the implementations.

“The implementation of the Cerner Millennium solutions will allow us to take a major step forward in the creation of a single, unified patient record and provide one standard of care across all of the Ministry of Health facilities,” said Humaid Bin Mohammad Al Qatami, Minister of Health for the UAE Ministry of Health.

“We believe patients will greatly benefit from clinicians’ ability to access one unified patient record with automated clinical decision support regardless of where they receive treatment at our 14 hospitals and 60 clinics in the Northern Emirates,” he added.

The Cerner Millennium solutions implemented throughout the MoH healthcare delivery facilities will automate processes in the scheduling, admissions, emergency, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, surgery, medical records and clinical supplies departments.

Nurses and physicians also will use the solutions to manage and document patient care through online order entry and results notification and viewing.

“It takes a tremendous amount of vision and commitment to move not only from a paper-based system to an automated system, but also to create a region-wide electronic patient record in the process,” said Rich Berner, Cerner Middle East vice president and general manager.

“This is a major milestone towards the transformation of the UAE’s healthcare system,” said Amro Al Deeb, iCapital CEO.-TradeArabia News Service