95% of Abu Dhabi based hospitals connected to 'Malaffi'

ABU DHABI - Malaffi, one of the key initiatives of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH), today announced that 95 per cent of hospitals within Abu Dhabi that use Electronic Medical Records (EMR), have connected their systems to the platform.

Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange platform, now safely and securely connects a total of 1,075 public and private facilities across the Emirate.

Adhering to the highest standards of security and privacy, Malaffi allows the meaningful, real-time exchange of important patient health information between healthcare providers, creating a centralised database of unified patient records. This marks a significant step towards bringing 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 expected to be connected in the coming months.

This milestone means that over 35,000 doctors, nurses and other members of care teams have access to Malaffi and can make better-informed, more efficient and safer decisions thanks to accessing important medical information, such as patient visits, medical conditions, allergies, procedures, lab results, radiology reports and medications, collated from 37 different EMR systems.

Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Acting Under-Secretary of the DoH, 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, "Since launch, we have witnessed significant participation and interest from the medical community, including the Emirate’s largest healthcare groups such as SEHA, Mediclinic, Mubadala Health, NMC, VPS and UEMedical." He added that in a survey of Malaffi users, reduction in duplication of laboratory and radiology investigations, as well as prevention of allergic reactions, were noted among the most valuable benefits of Malaffi.

Other benefits recognised by the medical community 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.