The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH) and Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange (HIE), showcased a population risk management analytics platform at the recently concluded GITEX exhibition. The technology will empower the healthcare sector to support care management, improve population health and assist in ensuring continuity of care.
The risk management solution, which is supported and provided by Malaffi, uses advanced AI analytic technologies such as machine learning, to build predictive models based on the clinical data and create algorithms that run in near real-time to predict cost, admissions, emergency department visits, readmissions, and diseases. Drilling down from the population to the physician and individual level, the insights will be used to predict risk, improve overall efficiencies and health outcomes.
The analytics dashboards will enable the DOH to gain insights into and manage certain risk categories such as the risk of emergency room visits or complications of chronic conditions such as diabetes. It will further visualise the population risk distribution and trends and will provide benchmarking against best practice guidelines. For the first time, real-time monitoring of health indicators and new data points will be available to improve quality through customised benchmarks, in addition to standard performance and utilisation reports.
Malaffi currently connects almost 83 per cent of all hospitals and a total of 814 healthcare facilities in Abu Dhabi, which accounts for 77 per cent of all episodes in the Emirate. The centralised database stores 175 million patient records, for over 5 million unique patients.
Improving patient care
Commenting on the new developments, H.E Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said: “We are proud to have built a healthcare infrastructure that is on par with the most advanced in the world. The addition of such sophisticated analytic technology to Malaffi is further testament of the DOH’s dedication to improving outcomes for the people of Abu Dhabi. Adoption of the latest technological advancements, which support further improvements to patient care, has always been a key part of our ambitious journey, and reaffirms the Emirate’s position as a true healthcare technology leader. Access to insights that support the management of the health status of the population, will strengthen our response to public health risks and enhance the Emirate’s emergency preparedness, and ultimately ensure excellence in healthcare now and in the future.”
While Atif Al Braiki, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Health Data Services, added: “Malaffi is the first HIE in the MENA region, and thanks to the support we have had from the Abu Dhabi healthcare sector, in a short time we have demonstrated the true value that connected healthcare can offer all our stakeholders. The addition of such sophisticated analytics platforms only expands on the benefits that Malaffi offers and maximises the data collated. Advanced technologies such as this will provide insights that will empower both the DOH and healthcare providers, to improve their population health and care management efforts. The ability to analyse large data sets to identify risk at an early stage and by improving overall efficiencies, we can be one step ahead in improving the quality of healthcare and outcomes for our patients. The next stage in the Malaffi journey is an exciting one.”
Malaffi was launched in 2019 as a partnership between the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi and Injazat. The platform is working to connect all, more than 2000, healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi by 2021.
