Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – April 27, 2020 In an effort to further reinforce the response to COVID-19, and under the direction of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH), Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform, has announced the urgent release of two solutions, to provide urgent extended access to Malaffi and a centralised database of all COVID-19 testing results in real-time. These solutions empower the Abu Dhabi healthcare sector and the healthcare providers to make more accurate, efficient and safer decisions during the current pandemic.

Malaffi’s extended solution offers urgent access to the Abu Dhabi providers that are not yet connected to Malaffi and are part of Abu Dhabi’s COVID-19 response. This allows front-line workers to consult their patients using real-time test results and relevant information from the medical history of the patient, helping with the assessment of the risk level for those patients and the making of further appropriate decisions for their care. As a result, doctors, nurses and healthcare professionals can take necessary first-response decisions, such as the need for patient isolation or hospitalisation, quicker and more effectively.

Malaffi’s centralised database of COVID-19 test results from all Abu Dhabi testing sites, available in real-time as data is recorded, helps the DOH strengthen its COVID-19 response by identifying and tracing the newly diagnosed cases. The solution facilitates well-founded pandemic clinical decisions and allows policymakers to more efficiently allocate resources for better capacity utilisation and optimise planning and care coordination in the Emirate.

Commenting on the new developments, H.E Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Acting Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said: “Further to its efforts to ensuring ample testing capacities, as the first-line response to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic, the DOH is committed to enabling comprehensive digital solutions to ensure the health and safety of everyone in our society. Building on the existing advanced digital centralised information platform, Malaffi, we can have full visibility of the spread of the virus and empower the front-line healthcare workers with clinical information to make safer and more efficient decisions.”

“By centralising all COVID-19 testing results from all testing sites in Abu Dhabi, through Malaffi, the DOH now has access to accurate and real-time key pandemics indicators. Having access to this information is most important in such situations as it enables us to assess and better plan the testing and healthcare capacities and coordinate the distribution of the response resources in the Emirate.” Al Kaabi added.
Mr. Atif Al Braiki, Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Health Data Services, said: “During these unprecedented times, we recognise the need of having connected healthcare now, more than ever before. As many countries are working to consolidate pandemics-related data, owing to Abu Dhabi’s visionary leadership, by further integrating clinical sources and centralising information in Malaffi, we are well-founded to support a data-driven public health response.”

Commenting on how Malaffi is helping UEMedical triage COVID-19 patients, Majd Abu Zant, Chief Operating Officer at UEMedical said: “Access to COVID-19 results and patients’ medical history through Malaffi is a great advantage for all connected providers. Checking the Malaffi file for testing results is now part of the routine triage and assessment process at UEMedical facilities. Having a record of testing results of the patient helps us understand the epidemiological circumstances and make further decisions. Through Malaffi, we are able to report test results securely (in addition to reporting to various regulatory and governmental bodies) in order to ensure that the results are readily, and promptly available to other healthcare providers.”

Created in partnership between the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH) and Injazat Data Systems, and launched in 2019, Malaffi’s portal for medical providers now has 450+ connected facilities and is available to over 20,000 users in Abu Dhabi containing 53 million unique clinical records for more than 3 million patients. Eventually, all 2,000 public and private healthcare providers in the Emirate will be connected.