(MENAFN Editorial) Authority moving towards a paperless environment in line with its Smart health strategy.
By end of this year, all DHA health facilities to have electronic medical records for patients.
All DHA patients that visit phase two DHA facilities asked to carry their Emirates ID, Health Card and Health Insurance Card for registration
Phase two DHA facilities are: Nad Al Sheba, Al Mankhool, Al Badaa, Al Lusaily, Al Safa and Al Zabeel primary healthcare centres.
Dubai, United Arab Emirates, August 13, 2017: Patients who visit certain DHA health facilities will now find that their medical record is available electronically, eliminating the need for manual files and ensuring that if they visit multiple DHA health facilities they still have only one unified medical record.
This is possible as the second phase of the Dubai Health Authority’s ( DHA’s) much-anticipated Salama project went live last week. The DHA’s IT department has unified about 1.4 million records and more than 112 million transactions have passed through this system during the first phase which took place in April. Subsequently, from then on, until now, 115,181 new electronic medical records were created in the system and approximately an additional 30 million transactions have been migrated in order to support the phase two rollout.
Now, in these centres that have adopted the Salama Electronic Medical Records System, all DHA patient’s appointments, radiology, pharmacy, laboratory information system, dental records, information about the patient on biomedical devices such as dialysis machine, ventilator, cardiac machine etc. are integrated through the electronic medical record ( EMR).
In phase two, DHA centres that have adopted this project include : Nad Al Sheba, Al Mankhool, Al Badaa, Al Lusaily, Al Safa and Al Zabeel PHC.
On August 18, Dubai Hospital, Nad Al Hamar, Family Gathering Clinic and Dubai Diabetes Center will adopt this system.
The third phase of the project will be completed in November 2017, ensuring all DHA health facilities have Electronic Medical Records and that the Authority moves to a paperless system. The health facilities that will adopt this system in phase three include Latifa Hospital, Hatta Hospital, Thalassemia Center, Muhaisnah Medical Fitness Center and Dubai Gynecology & Fertility Center.
In order to ensure its smooth facilitation, the Authority has requested patients who visit DHA phase two facilities provide their Emirates ID, medical card and health insurance details for electronic registration.
His Excellency HE Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority, said: ‘DHA’s smart health initiatives are in line with the vision of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the #UAE and Ruler of Dubai. Our smart initiatives are aligned with the Dubai Health Strategy 2016 to 2021 and the Dbai smart government strategy, which aims to transform Dubai into a smart city, said Al Qatami. ‘ This project will help provide patients across DHA health facilities with an electronic file and easy access to their health information. It will further improve patient safety and enhance efficiency. The move will benefit patients, the health facility and the overall health sector.
Amani Al Jassmi, Director of Information Technology at the Dubai Health Authority, said: ‘It will help improve patient care and patient safety and it will improve risk management and organizational quality. As part of Salama program, DHA unified 425 workflows to standardize the working mechanism across all DHA facilities. The unified workflows enable improved patient care and patient safety. Each roll out is supported extensively by the DHA Salama Teams by providing 24/7 on-site elbow-to-elbow support to DHA staff in addition to a dedicated round-the-clock Salama Helpdesk for its staff. In addition, approximately, 600 Salama Super Users were provided with additional training to prepare roll out. Approximately 4000 staff members were trained during the phase 1 and an additional 3800 were trained for phase 2 go live. By the end of this year, all DHA facilities will adopt electronic medical records.
Al Jassmi added the project will provide healthcare providers across the DHA network with quick access to patient records. Healthcare providers will receive consolidated and integrated patient information, which gives providers a rapid, complete overview of the patient’s condition. The system helps facilitate automatic cross-referencing of medication and allergy interactions. The system will also provide real-time alerts, warnings, and flags to draw attention to changes in the patient medication or patient condition. Moreover, allergy warnings will always be displayed on the screen, which directly results in minimizing any medication errors.
Al Jassmi added that patients would also be able to access to their medical record through a patient portal.
Dr Manal Taryam, CEO of Primary Healthcare Centre, said: ‘ Electronic Medical Records is the way forward and given the high volume of patients received at the DHA’s primary healthcare centres, the implementation of this project will significantly benefit both patients and healthcare providers and lead to improved efficiencies, which is beneficial for the overall health sector.
Salama is integrated with more than 25 DHA internal and external applications including Dubai Corporate Ambulance Services (DCAS), Emirates ID, Bioscentia Lab, National Research Lab (NRL), DHA CRM, DHA’s Lab Information System, DHA’s radiology system, dental software and insurance system.
This ensures seamless integration and implementation across DHA facilities, which will be completed by the end of this year.
