Second phase of electronic medical record project goes live

Patients who visit certain Dubai Health Authority, DHA, facilities will now find that their medical records are available electronically, eliminating the need for manual files and ensuring that if they visit multiple DHA health facilities they will only have one unified medical record.

This has become possible as the second phase of the DHA’s much-anticipated "Salama" project went live last week. The DHA’s IT department has unified about 1.4 million records and over 112 million transactions have passed through its system during the project’s first phase, which took place in April.

In the health centres that have adopted the Salama Electronic Medical Records System, all DHA patient’s appointments, radiology, pharmacy, laboratory information system and dental records, and their information on biomedical devices such as dialysis machines, ventilators and cardiac machines have been integrated into their electronic medical record, EMR.

In Phase 2, the DHA centres that have adopted this project include Nad Al Sheba, Al Mankhool, Al Badaa, Al Lusaily, Al Safa and Al Zabeel PHC.

On August 18, Dubai Hospital, Nad Al Hamar, Family Gathering Clinic and Dubai Diabetes Centre will also adopt this system.

The third phase of the project will be completed in November 2017, ensuring that all DHA health facilities have their patient’s ERMs, and that the Authority has moved to a paperless system. The health facilities that will adopt this system in Phase 3 include Latifa Hospital, Hatta Hospital, Thalassemia Centre, the Muhaisnah Medical Fitness Centre and the Dubai Gynaecology and Fertility Centre.

To ensure its smooth facilitation, the Authority has requested the patients of DHA Phase 2 facilities to provide their Emirates ID, medical card, and health insurance details for electronic registration.

"This project will help provide patients across DHA health facilities with an electronic file and easy access to their health information. It will further improve patient safety and enhance efficiency. The move will benefit patients, the health facility and the overall health sector," said Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the DHA.

Amani Al Jassmi, Director of Information Technology at the DHA, said, "It will help improve patient care and patient safety, and it will improve risk management and organisational quality. As part of the Salama programme, the DHA has unified 425 workflows to standardise the working mechanism across all DHA facilities. The unified workflows will enable improved patient care and patient safety. Each roll out is supported extensively by DHA Salama teams, by providing 24x7 on-site elbow-to-elbow support to DHA staff, in addition to a dedicated round-the-clock Salama Helpdesk for its staff. In addition, approximately 600 Salama Super users were provided with additional training to prepare roll out. Approximately 4,000 staff members were also trained during the phase 1, and an additional 3,800 were trained for Phase 2 to go live. By the end of this year, all DHA facilities will adopt ERMs."

Al Jassmi added that patients would also be able to access to their medical record through a patient portal.

Dr Manal Taryam, CEO of Primary Healthcare Centre, said, "ERM is the way forward, and given the high volume of patients being received at the DHA’s primary healthcare centres, the implementation of this project will significantly benefit both patients and healthcare providers and lead to improved efficiencies, which is beneficial for the overall health sector."

Source: Wam