Dubai Health Authority (DHA) will rate all healthcare facilities including public and private hospitals and day-care health centres in Dubai in accordance with the Dubai Health Facilities Performance Framework (DHFPF).

The framework, known as Qeyas, will be finalized and implemented by the beginning of next year and has five pillars which include patient safety, clinical quality, patient happiness, financial and operational indicators.

The DHA’s Health Regulation Sector held a workshop today (July 16) with the private health sector to discuss the design and implementation of the framework. This is one of the several workshops and feedback cycles conducted with an aim to design a framework with buy-in from hospitals and other healthcare facilities.

Dr Marwan Al Mulla, CEO of the Health Regulation Sector said: “Benchmarking and measuring the quality of care is fundamental to help build a robust health system where patient-centric care and patient safety is the cornerstone. We are working closely with the private sector to design a system with uses health data intelligently to help enhance health service delivery.”

Following the implementation of this system, DHA will be able to:

•    Improve quality across the health system in Dubai.
•    Provide consumers with information to help empower them to make better choices about healthcare providers.
•    Provide medical tourists with trustworthy, independently validated information about Dubai’s healthcare quality.
•    Develop a long-term reimbursement strategy, which is based on evidence of the quality of care provided.

Dr Mohammed Al Redha, director of Project Management Office, Informatics and Smart Health Department at the DHA said: “The methodology will be data-driven and grounded in sound principles of data consistency, relevance, accuracy and integrity in order to drive crucial decision-making and strengthen the health sector in Dubai.”

The DHFPF will include data from e-claims, Sheryan (DHA’s health regulation system), Salama (electronic patient file system for all DHA health facilities) and a range of private healthcare providers.

The DHA will also engage with major private hospitals, day care surgery centres, selected polyclinics, Dubai Healthcare City (DHCC) and Ministry of Health & Prevention (MoHAP) facilities in Dubai and support them to help provide data. – TradeArabia News Service