Abu Dhabi – January 25, 2022: As part of its participation in Arab Health 2022, Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform, along with the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), the regulator of the healthcare sector in the emirate, celebrates its three-year anniversary and showcases its strategic plans to enhance Abu Dhabi's digital healthcare ecosystem and the overall quality of healthcare services.

Malaffi currently connects 100% of hospitals and 95% of all clinics and medical centres in Abu Dhabi. This accounts for 99% of all patient episodes in Abu Dhabi, making it one of the fastest rollouts in the world of a health information exchange platform. The platform has collated over 660 million unique clinical records of medical information, from patient visits and lab results to radiology reports, vital signs, medications, vaccination records and a wide range of important healthcare data. Over 45,640 doctors, nurses, pharmacists and staff from healthcare facilities across Abu Dhabi have secure access to Malaffi.

H.E Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said: “Under the directives of the UAE’s wise leadership and their ambitious vision, the healthcare sector in Abu Dhabi has positioned itself as one of the leading healthcare systems in the world. This achievement is thanks to the emirate’s strong and advanced infrastructure, digital and technological capabilities and crisis readiness and preparedness, as witnessed with the successful COVID-19 pandemic response. Following its establishment, Malaffi has played a vital role in the healthcare sector’s journey towards growth and development. It has directly contributed to the success of Abu Dhabi’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and maintaining the health and safety of all members of the community. We are confident that Malaffi will continue to be an integral component in the future of the healthcare sector for many years to come.”

Atif Al Braiki, the Chief Executive Officer of Abu Dhabi Health Data Services, the operator of Malaffi, said: “We are incredibly proud of how far and fast we have come on our journey at Malaffi. In just three years since the launch in January 2019, we have built, from the ground up, what is now the region’s foremost Health Information Exchange platform (HIE). Malaffi has transformed healthcare in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi with the support of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) and will undoubtedly continue to do so as the data quality and capabilities of the platform increase.”

Al Braiki added: “Looking to the years ahead, we enter a new phase for Malaffi with a roadmap guided by the strategic priorities of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH). We are constantly seeking to meet the expectations of our providers to improve the platform and to benefit patients while working to provide patients in Abu Dhabi with access to their medical records in Malaffi. We have also started to explore how the collated robust population health data can play a greater role in improving our capabilities to make data-driven decisions in areas such as disease risk management, preparedness, prevention, and healthcare quality. We will always strive to innovate and discover new capabilities to improve the health and wellbeing of our population.”

Hal Wolf, President & CEO, Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS) said: “HIMSS joins the global digital health community in applauding Malaffi and the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi (DoH) for rolling out a benchmark HIE in a record time of three years. Their efforts demonstrate the power of what we can achieve through digital health transformation. I am confident that with the same energy and focus, the next phase of unlocking the value of the collected data will have a positive, significant impact on population and public health in the Emirate.”

At the DoH stand at Arab Health 2022, Malaffi will showcase a data quality dashboard that identifies challenges with the current use of clinical data standards when healthcare providers are recording clinical information in their EMR systems, which is collated and available in Malaffi. The analysis generated via the dashboard guided DoH to issue specific guidance on clinical data standards to healthcare providers in Abu Dhabi (such as SNOMED CT [1]and LOINC[2]), late last year. The sector-wide adoption of these standards will significantly improve interoperability, data quality and thus increase the clinical value of the data available to all clinicians and enhance the accuracy and scope of population health insights.

In addition, Malaffi will be showcasing an enhanced version of the Provider Portal that is available to authorised clinicians in Abu Dhabi, including new data points integrated within the last year, such as clinical documents, vital signs and immunisation records. As part of the strategic road map, the platform will showcase an image exchange solution that will be fully integrated with the Malaffi Provider Portal this year and will allow users to have access to patients’ diagnostic radiology images such as X-rays, CT scans, MRIs and ultrasound. All these significant additions to the Provider Portal are being integrated based on requests by Malaffi users and are added to the already available data on encounters, demographics, allergies, medication, radiology reports, laboratory results, problems and diagnosis and procedures. Expanding the scope of clinical information is expected to significantly impact patient care and the overall quality of the population health insights available to DoH, drawn with advanced AI analytics from the database of the rich clinical information in Malaffi.

Contributing to the exhibition, Atif Al Braiki will speak about how HIEs provide value to the entire healthcare ecosystem, as part of the Healthcare Transformation Talks on 26^th January at 10:30 am. Dr. Rahul Goyal, Senior Vice President of Clinical Engagement and Adoption, is part of the scientific committee of the virtual Family Medicine Conference and on 1^st February will highlight how having access to the longitudinal patient files helps primary care clinicians to improve patient experience and outcomes.

[1] SNOMED CT - Systematized Nomenclature of Medicine - Clinical Terms

[2] LOINC - Logical Observation Identifiers Names and Codes