Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform, one of the Department of Health’s major initiatives – Abu Dhabi (DOH), has announced that more than 60% of all Abu Dhabi Emirates hospitals have been connected to Malaffi for nearly one year from the first go-live milestone
Among other healthcare providers, these include SEHA Emirates Hospital, Emirates International Hospital, Dar Al Shifaa Hospital, Bareen Hospital and Cambridge Medical & Rehabilitation Hospital. This marks great progress in bringing the Abu Dhabi Emirate closer to its goal of connecting all healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi.
The onboarding of these healthcare providers means that almost 25,923 doctors, nurses and other members of the healthcare teams have access to Malaffi and can make better-informed decisions by accessing vital medical information, such as patient visits, medical problems, allergies, procedures, lab results, radiology reports and medications, in 107 million clinical records from 16 different Electronic Medical Records (EMR) systems operated by over 500 connected healthcare facilities.
Dr Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, acting undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said, “The Platform is enhancing the value of information in the system and speed of connectivity, to help us build a stronger, more resilient and cohesive, knowledge-founded healthcare system that provides better care for everyone.”
Malaffi brings together 35 healthcare groups and a total of 40 hospitals and 403 clinics, which are now exchanging medical information via the HIE platform.
The DOH was better set to evaluate and implement response measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, based on real-time pandemic indicators from the centralised database of all COVID-19 results in Abu Dhabi, which was deployed by Malaffi as a matter of urgency.
In addition, front-liners were allowed urgent access to Malaffi to access test results and vital information on a medical history that has been critical in their clinical decision-making process.
Dr Kumaraswamy R. C. Gadari, an internal medicine doctor at NMC Specialty Hospital in Abu Dhabi which is one of the top users of Malaffi, said, “As we did not have an in-house testing facility for COVID-19, it used to take four to five working days to get PCR reports. With access to Malaffi, this time was reduced to 48 hours.”
Having quick access to the results of COVID-19 through Malaffi has enabled doctors to respond promptly to the needs of patients and ease the anxiety from waiting for test results.
