By 2023, all patients will join a single, unified medical record system…

Dubai Health Authority (DHA) has announced big changes for Dubai hospital records, which will come into effect in 2023. Announced by the DHA at Gitex 2022, which is currently taking place at Dubai World Trade Center, the health body has confirmed that all hospital patient records will move to a single, unified medical records system.

As reported by Gulf News, the process will be implemented by the end of 2022, with all patients integrated onto one electronic system. This means that if you have treatment at one hospital on one occasion, and another on a separate occasion, doctors and nurses will be able to access your electronic file, which will have all of your medical information safely stored.

The system, called NABIDH, was first introduced in late 2020, to give all patients unified medical records. In its first phase, a handful of Mediclinic hospitals on board, but by the end of this year, all Dubai hospitals will be brought into the system.

NABIDH will link with the UAE’s Riyati initiative, which was unveiled by the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) in December 2021 as the national unified medical record platform, with DHA, the Department of Health Abu Dhabi and Emirates Health Services (EHS) all partnering on the initiative.

Combining the work of the NABIDH project in Dubai and the wider UAE Riyati project, medical practicioners will be able to access more than 9 million unified medical records across Dubai from 454 healthcare facilities.

According to Awadh Seghayer Al Ketbi, Director-General of DHA, the unified digital system will “serve patients better, enhance efficiencies, reduce waiting time, provide personalized patient-centered care and securely use data to develop public health policies to enhance community health and for disease prevention.”

The timeline

All hospitals will be onboarded by early 2023, according to the DHA, with clinics to follow thereafter. It’s forecast that all clinics will be integrated into the system by the final quarter of 2023.

“The Nabidh project is one of the main initiatives that will enable us to create a digital health ecosystem for Dubai,” Al Ketbi added. “We are proud of the collaboration with hospitals across the public and the private health sector.”