Abu Dhabi's first health information exchange platform, Malaffi has connected 95% of hospitals within the region that use electronic medical records to its system.

Malaffi, which translates to "my file" in Arabic, now connects a total of 1,075 public and private facilities across the country.

WHY IT MATTERS

Malaffi's platform facilitates real-time exchange of patient health information between healthcare providers, creating a centralised database of unified patient records.

This move aims to bring the Emirate of Abu Dhabi closer to its goal of connecting all of Abu Dhabi’s healthcare facilities later in 2021, with all hospital EMRs connected in the coming months.

Through connecting key health information, over 35,000 doctors, nurses and other members of care teams have access to medical information such as patient visits, medical conditions, allergies, procedures, lab results, radiology reports and medications, collated from 37 different EMR systems.

A user survey found that the most valuable benefits of the platform include reduction in duplication of laboratory and radiology investigations, as well as prevention of allergic reactions. Other benefits included Malaffi’s role in improving the speed of diagnosis, supporting clinical decision-making, and reducing medication duplications and errors, together with improving the efficiency of the healthcare system.

Dr Martin Lascano, chief medical informatics officer at Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, and member of the Malaffi Clinical Advisory Committee, said: “At Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, our patient-centric model involves multidisciplinary teams so it is critical that all caregivers know and understand the patient’s needs.

"Wherever they have received prior treatment in Abu Dhabi, Malaffi now allows our caregivers to have a much clearer picture of the medical history of the patient we are seeing, which improves patient experience and helps us establish a trust-based relationship."

THE LARGER CONTEXT

In recent news, Abu Dhabi sovereign investor, Mubadala Investment Company has committed an initial £800 million towards the development of sciences in the UK over the next five years through a new partnership.

ON THE RECORD

H.E Dr Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, acting undersecretary of the Department of Health, Abu Dhabi, said: “In Abu Dhabi, we have achieved an important milestone in transforming the healthcare sector by connecting most of the Emirate's hospitals and a large percentage of other healthcare facilities. This will contribute to improving the sector’s performance and providing the best levels of care to residents of the Emirate.

"Thanks to the directives and support of the wise leadership, innovative platforms such as Malaffi play a prominent and pivotal role in this transformation, the subsequent development of a stronger, more informed, and knowledge founded healthcare system.”

Atif Al Braiki, the chief executive officer of Abu Dhabi health data services, the operator of Malaffi, said: “Reaching this milestone is a truly wonderful achievement for Malaffi. It signifies a key milestone for us that gets us closer to seeing every provider in Abu Dhabi, both public and private being connected. In the last two years, we kept our focus clear on our mission to enable a safe and secure exchange of patient health information to enhance quality healthcare and patient outcomes. We look forward to further successes in 2021”.