Dubai: The Dubai Health Authority’s (DHA) Baraem Early Development Screening Tool, which aims to detect developmental delays among children aged nine months to six years, can now be accessed by the public via the DHA App.

Baraem, which is free of charge, is one of the services on display by the Authority during the three-day Access Abilities Expo 2019.

Dr Hanan Al Hammadi, Consultant and Acting Director of Health Affairs Department at the Primary Health Care Services Sector explained that skills acquired by a child, such as stepping for the first time, smiling for the first time, waving and pointing are aspects of developmental milestones that healthy children should meet.

Developmental delays happens when the child does not reach these milestones.

Al Hammadi stressed the importance of early detection as a missed milestone could be a sign of a problem, so the child should be referred to a doctor or a specialist for developmental screening.

Some of the most common developmental or behavioral disabilities that these screenings can discover are speech delays, learning disabilities as well as hearing and vision disorders.  

“By launching the Baraem initiative, which is an automated digital process for developmental screening we hope to help parents detect developmental delays early so that the needed intervention can be done. Baraem is a short questionnaire consisting of 20 questions designed by the primary healthcare sector, to assess the development of children from 9 months to 6 years of age in terms of movement, language, problem solving and social communication at different age levels,” said Al Hammadi.

She stressed the importance of the screening tool revealing that studies have shown that less than 30% of children with developmental disabilities are detected through a pediatric clinical examination. Therefore, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends a screening to detect developmental delay using one of the tools approved for developmental screening for all children aged 9 months, 18 months, 24-30 months.

“Once parents fill out the questionnaire they will immediately be informed if the child's development is on track or needs further evaluation. In the pilot phase we have used the tool on 2,000 children visiting our primary healthcare center. We are happy to announce that the tool is now available for all parents via the DHA app,” she concluded.

For further information, please contact:

Kamakshi Gupta and Noor Nazzal
Communications Analysts- Media Dept.
Dubai Health Authority
klgupta@dha.gov.ae nnnazzal@dha.gov.ae 
+9714 2197455

About the Dubai Health Authority:

The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) was created, in June 2007, by Law 13 issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, with an expanded vision to include strategic oversight for the complete health sector in Dubai and enhance private sector engagement. 

Prior to the establishment of the DHA, the Department of Health and Medical Services, which was established in 1973, was the functioning authority that almost exclusively focused on health service delivery.

In May 2018, H.H Sheikh Mohammed, issued Law No. (6) of 2018 of the DHA. The new Law further enables the DHA to achieve its objectives including regulating medical services in Dubai, enhancing competiveness and transparency, improving medical services and products based on international best practices and achieving the sector’s objectives according to approved strategic plans.

H.H Sheikh Mohammed also issued Decree No. 17 of 2018 establishing subsidiaries of the DHA: the Dubai Healthcare Corporation and Dubai Health Insurance Corporation to further enhance healthcare services in Dubai and enable DHA to fulfil its responsibilities and obligations.

Three new strategic sectors were also added as part of the decree; they include Strategy and Corporate Development, Health Regulation, and Shared Support Services.

In addition to overseeing the health sector for the Emirate of Dubai, the DHA also focuses on providing services through DHA healthcare facilities including Latifa, Dubai, Rashid and Hatta Hospitals, its 12 primary healthcare centres, 17 medical fitness centres and its 6 specialty centres.

For more information, visit DHA’s website: www.dha.gov.ae 

© Press Release 2019

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