In attendance of H.E. Sheikh Abdulla Bin Mohamed Al Hamed, the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi (DoH), the regulator of the healthcare sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, recently launched the region’s first Health Information Exchange system, a centralised platform designed to streamline healthcare connectivity for the Emirate.

The Abu Dhabi Health Information Exchange system will be operated by a new Project Company known as Abu Dhabi Health Data Services, established as part of the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) between the DoH and Injazat Data Systems, a subsidiary of Mubadala Investment Company, and the Middle East leader in information technology and digital transformation services.

The HIE that will be known as ‘Malaffi’ (meaning ‘my file’ in Arabic), will connect more than 2,000 public and private healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi, that provide healthcare services for more than 3 million people in Abu Dhabi, revolutionizing the delivery of healthcare. The safe and secure system will be a necessary tool for physicians to make faster, more efficient medical decisions for patients, will reduce overutilization and duplication of healthcare services, and thereby will improve the quality of care and patient outcomes.

Commenting on the new standard requirements, H.E. Sheikh Abdulla Al Hamed, Chairman of DoH said: “I would like to thank our partners at Injazat for their efforts in making this remarkable milestone possible. The launch of ‘Malaffi’ is another addition to the Emirate’s healthcare sector, which is witnessing an unprecedented shift towards technology and AI. Using these resources, DoH is transforming healthcare, increasing the positive outcomes and paving the way towards a healthier Abu Dhabi.”

Initially, the platform will connect six of Abu Dhabi’s healthcare organizations, including SEHA (Abu Dhabi Health Services Company), Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Imperial College Diabetes Centre, Healthpoint, United Eastern Medical Services (UEMedical) group and Oasis Hospital, Al Ain. Their participation alone is 18 hospitals and 65 medical centres and clinics, and more than 3,500 physicians and 8,300 nurses.

‘Malaffi’ will also support the government with syndromic surveillance and management of chronic diseases, thereby identifying the potential spread of disease, enabling the efficient development of emergency medical response plans in real-time to help prevent epidemics.

Mr. Khaled Al Qubaisi, Chairman of Injazat Data Systems, said: “The platform has been developed to scale for the future, with an incredible opportunity to harvest the powers of Artificial Intelligence technologies and machine learning, to improve health outcomes and ultimately prolong life. Malaffi has been developed to comply with emirate-wide and federal health privacy laws to ensure patient confidentiality and data security. We are looking forward to the successful implementation of Malaffi across all healthcare providers, and to solidify Abu Dhabi’s position on the global map of advanced societies.”

It is expected that both public and private healthcare facilities will implement ‘Malaffi’ by the end of 2019.