The UAE Ministry of Health and Prevention (Mohap) recently hosted a workshop for healthcare professionals to discuss key industry issues including ways to create an improved unified national database of patient records.
 
The event was organized in co-ordination with the Abu Dhabi Health Authority (Adha), the Dubai Health Authority (DHA), the Emirates Identity Authority (Eida), Medical Services of the Armed Forces and Pure Health with the chief aim of creating and facilitating a better patient transfer process and a smoother flow of exchanging a patient's medical information between public and private hospitals as well as health clinics.

The move is expected to ensure advanced patient care while also saving on time and costs and improve the level and quality of health care throughout the country.  

One of the recommendations made is the proposal to use a patient's national or emirates ID number as a unified reference for a central database containing all health and medical data, said a statement from Mohap.

The adoption of this recommendation, along with the creation of the template of the necessary forms will be applied and implemented in the next four years and is expected to be fully adopted by all of UAE's health and medical facilities in 2021.  

Awad Sagher Al Ketbi, the assistant undersecretary, support services sector at Mohap, said: "The proposed unified national medical record project is aimed at developing a unified database of patients that can help in effecting improved health care, wider patients engagement and secure key details of each patient’s medical records--all in accordance with the highest international standards and best practices."

Ali Juma Al Ajme, the director, IT department at Mohap, pointed out that it is being positioned as a digital health platform that provides updated data for patient records like medical history, the period of hospitalisation and the type of medication that has been prescribed to the patient, which can help avoid medical errors that may occur.

The initiative falls in line with the strategic objectives being run by the Ministry.

Mubaraka Mubarak Ali Ibrahim, the director for Health Information Systems, said the project will contribute in unifying all medical records across all health facilities in the country and also play a great role in improving the quality of health care and patient safety.

"The database can help in assessing performance, better automate the health care system, ensure a smoother flow of digital information and save previous medical history for the patient—creating a way to make better clinical decisions by providing the correct records and ensuring quick access to it while saving time and cost, which will result in better health outcomes through the involvement of individuals, families and health care," she added.-TradeArabia News Service