The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) www.dha.gov.ae/en has rolled out several ideas, policies, and plans across several specialties to meet their objectives. HE Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the DHA Board and Director General of the DHA, reports there are 15 programs and more than 100 initiatives that DHA is currently tracking.
One of the initiatives under the DHA Care Model Innovation Program includes telemedicine: A regulatory framework for telemedicine has been completed and in the future, people will have helpline numbers that they can call for medical queries. Doctors will address their queries and direct them to specialists or discuss whether they need to visit the ER or perhaps the doctor will book appointments for them based on their medical condition.
The DHA’s patient electronic medical record project known as “Salama” is on track and by the end of 2017, will be implemented across all DHA. This will take place providing that all of DHA’s health facilities have EMRs.
Currently, the project is in phase 3. 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. Since April, the DHA EHR system has created 115,181 new EMRs.
DHA is in the process of establishing a Center of Excellence. Recently DHA, GE Healthcare www.gehealthcare.com, and Columbia Heart Source as part of New York Presbyterian Hospital www.nyp.org, recently signed a memorandum of understanding to establish an “International Center of Cardiology” that will use the latest technology which is expected to include telehealth.
Also, the DHA Heart Team has adopted a state-of-the-art technology to prevent strokes using an expandable implant that blocks off the left atrial appendage. According to Dr. Fahad Baslaib, Head of Cardiology Department at the Rashid Hospital https://dha.gov.ae “The new device has been successfully implanted on six high-risk patients saving them from suffering from any stroke.”