Dubai: Nearly all the hospitals in Dubai are on the way to becoming paper-less, the Dubai Health Authority (DHA) announced yesterday.
It said that according to a survey, 96.7 per cent of hospitals in the emirate have already started the process towards a paper-less environment.
The Authority recently felicitated three Dubai hospitals that follow best practices in electronic implementation of medical records.
All hospitals were judged on the basis on their EMRAM (Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model) score.
The DHA said this model is accepted world-wide today as an international benchmark for the hospitals’ electronic efforts.
The model uses a 0 to 7 stage scales to rate hospitals based on the extent to which they have adopted a paperless, digital system. Stage 7 means the hospital is a paperless and digital hospital.
The initiative is in line with the DHA’s long-term vision to implement the Dubai Smart Healthcare Model that was launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, at Gitex 2013, it said. The model includes three components: smart operations, smart applications and smart hospitals.
Dr Mohammad Al Redha, director of health data and information analysis, at the DHA said the adoption of this model plays a beneficial role in Dubai’s Smart Government and Smart City plans.
“Dubai is keen to offer smart health care services to consumers, and we need to test these services against international automation benchmarks. We are pleased to see the increase in the number of hospitals that are on track with their automation plans towards a paper-less environment,” he said. An award was given for two categories: Dubai hospitals that represent best practices in implementation of the Electronic Medical Record (EMR), and hospitals that have dramatically improved their EMRAM score results compared to the previous year.
The Saudi-German hospital won the prize in the first category, while Belhoul European Hospital, and Burjeel Hospital won the prize in the latter category.
John Hoyt, executive vice president, HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Analytics, said there has been a dramatic improvement of the percentage of Stage 5 hospitals from 0 per cent in 2011, to 22.4 per cent in 2013. He said the percentage of hospitals that embarked on their automation journey has increased by 18.1 per cent since the programme was implemented for hospitals in Dubai.
