Announced today, Orion Health and Abu Dhabi Health Data Services will deliver the first Health Information Exchange (HIE) Platform in the Middle East. Named ‘Malaffi’, the HIE Platform will centrally store and enable the meaningful exchange of patient health information between healthcare professionals and will ultimately connect 2,000 public and private healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi.

Today healthcare systems waste more than a trillion dollars each year on healthcare spend, from unnecessary administration, avoidable lab testing and readmissions of patients into hospital. With the support of an HIE Platform, technology can increase the efficiency of the healthcare system, reduce the number of tests and avoidable re-admissions of patients to hospital.

Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) are hubs for the sharing of clinical and administrative data across multiple healthcare organisations, data centres, and healthcare communities.

The access to the centralized patient records provides physicians with a tool to make well informed, fast decisions, enhance patient safety, reduce the duplication of diagnostic procedures and ultimately improve the quality of care and outcomes.

‘Malaffi’ will improve communications among healthcare providers across the emirate and enhance patient safety reducing medication errors and allergies and improve speed and accuracy of diagnosis and duplication of laboratory testing.

The highly scalable platform will also have the capability to harness the power of patient and population data, and by creating insights into the emirate’s public health, have a significant impact on improving the overall efficiency of Abu Dhabi’s health system. With the improved communication and data sharing that an HIE provides, researchers and government organisations can gain improved access to public health data. This enables informed decision making about population health needs and the tracking of important data trends.

Speaking at the launch of ‘Malaffi’, Atif Al Braiki, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Health Data Services said the Department of Health-Abu Dhabi (DoH) recognized the need to centrally and efficiently, store, exchange, and analyze the enormous amount of data that is being created in healthcare every day. By using advanced technologies, such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning, the DoH will drive the digital transformation of the healthcare system, for a happier and healthier Abu Dhabi.

Storing and aggregating vast volumes of different clinical data, and surfacing it in data analytics, will bring Abu Dhabi a step closer to the practice of precision medicine, which is only possible when health providers have a complete picture of a person’s health. ‘Malaffi’ will use the most current technology and data analytics, that will reduce the avoidable and duplicated procedures, and therefore improve the efficiency of Abu Dhabi’s health systems and the overall delivery of care.

‘Malaffi’ will be showcased at Arab Health 2019 this week on DoH stand, during Arab Health 2019 at the Dubai World Trade Center (Hall 5, Stand N H5B40).