UAE Ministry of Health to automate healthcare processes

Patients and clinicians at Ministry of Health (MoH) hospitals and clinics in United Arab Emirates (UAE) Northern Emirates soon will benefit from a fundamental change in the way they receive healthcare. MoH facilities will be implementing healthcare information technology (HIT) systems from Cerner Corporation that are designed to improve patient care and the way doctors and nurses do their jobs. Fourteen hospitals and 60 clinics will implement a suite of Cerner Millennium solutions to optimize and automate paper-based processes. iCapital, a UAE-based company and consortium lead, will serve as the prime contractor for the implementations.

“The implementation of the Cerner Millennium solutions will allow us to take a major step forward in the creation of a single, unified patient record and provide one standard of care across all of the Ministry of Health facilities,” says Humaid Bin Mohammad Al Qatami, Minister of Health for the United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health. “We believe patients will greatly benefit from clinicians’ ability to access one unified patient record with automated clinical decision support regardless of where they receive treatment at our 14 hospitals and 60 clinics in the Northern Emirates.”

The Cerner Millennium solutions implemented throughout the MoH healthcare delivery facilities will automate processes in the scheduling, admissions, emergency, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, surgery, medical records and clinical supplies departments. Nurses and physicians also will use Cerner Millennium solutions to manage and document patient care through online order entry and results notification and viewing.

“It takes a tremendous amount of vision and commitment to move not only from a paper-based system to an automated system, but also to create a region-wide electronic patient record in the process,” says Rich Berner, Cerner Middle East Vice President and General Manager. “We are excited to partner with the MoH and iCapital in this important initiative. We commend the leadership in the Ministry of Health for making a dramatic change that will ultimately allow clinicians to provide better care to the communities they serve.”

“This is a major milestone towards the transformation of the UAE’s healthcare system. Cerner’s vision for providing information at the point of care, and its single electronic medical record architecture across the MoH network of provider hospitals are key factors for realizing the objectives of MoH. We are privileged to have this partnership with MoH and Cerner for such a large-scale national initiative,” says Amro Al Deeb, iCapital CEO.

Cerner Millennium solutions offer many benefits that paper-based systems cannot provide. These solutions enable clinicians to connect to the centralized electronic medical record (EMR) to access vital information for effective decision-making. Combining technology with knowledge and process optimization, Cerner Millennium solutions empower health professionals to run tests, make diagnoses, place orders, fill medications, document care or remit bills using a single information system. This automation benefits patients by potentially reducing the risk for medication errors; providing clinicians with a complete picture of the patient’s health; and cutting down on time-consuming paper-based processes.