State-of-the-Art Strategies & Ongoing Advances, Nasser Al Budoor updates us on the latest developments in UAE healthcare
The UAE Ministry of Health (MoH) has commenced an important new phase in its ongoing process of developing and upgrading the country’s medical services. This comes as a result of the directions of His Highness Sheikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of UAE, and His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of UAE and Ruler of Dubai, in conjunction with Their Hignesses the Rulers of the Emirates, which aim to create solid and advanced medical care coverage for the residents of the UAE.
MoH looks forwards to achieving positive results in a way that can be tangibly reflected in patient care. This is due to the execution of the international accreditation programme which aims to improve the level of health care offered to patients and society as a whole.
HealthFirst was granted the opportunity to speak with Nasser Al Budoor, Director Health Minister’s Office and Director International Relations, MoH, about the organisation’s upcoming plans.
MoH is keen to implement these directions in order to fulfill the political leadership’s wise vision in terms of putting forward bills that can meet the national aspirations in the health sector. The UAE has recently witnessed new health legislation that meets the international trends in enacting laws concerning the health sector, which basically focuses upon protecting people from contagious and chronic diseases through taking preventive measures that are necessary for providing medical care for the community.
Among the practical plans that MoH has adopted is a package of laws and regulations which have already come into effect. These include a system for the screening of expatriate labourers, the carrying out of pre-marriage tests, a medical liability law, a law to combat the use of tobacco (according to a global combating tobaccos accord, in which the UAE is a member) and a law regulating organ transplantation. There is also now legislation that covers the licensing of fertility centres in order to govern artificial insemination and the conditions under which such centres are licensed and the structure of their executive boards. This legislation entails rules derived from the perspectives of Shariah law, as well as taking into account ethical considerations,
A new federal health insurance scheme is also currently under the procedure for enaction. This will ensure the provision of medical care for both nationals and expatriates. In addition to this, there is a new bill being processed which relates to medical products, pharmaceutical establishments and pharmacists, which aims to establish to what extent medicines exported to the UAE are safe for use and to protect the intellectual property rights of pharmaceutical companies all over the world.
To fulfil the political leadership direction, which aims to maintain the integrity and safety of medical and treatment practices, MoH has created a certificate called a ‘marketing permit’ related to the registration and approval of medicines by the Central Committee for Drugs Registration. This is administered by the executive office of GCC ministers of health, where permits are given to be sold in the UAE after being registered.
A new approach has also been generated to inspect biological medicines before they are imported into the country, i.e., each shipment must be first inspected and certified by international organisations. MoH has also designed a database program for the importing and exporting of medicine and chemical materials, to encourage customers to use electronic transactions.
It is worth mentioning here that these new laws and regulations inspired by the wisdom of the political leadership have resulted in great success. This is represented by the approval of the president of the state for establishing the Federal Authority for Health Services (FHA), which enables the provision of health services for people in conformity with international standards under the supervision and monitoring of MoH. It includes the enacting of laws and regulations that cover rules and practices in all areas of the health sector.
The objective behind establishing the FHA is to help hospitals and health centres in different locations reach autonomy. For this reason, Sharjah has been chosen as the headquarters, due to its position within the northern emirates.
MoH has taken actions to empower the FHA by transferring medical, administrative and technical personnel to provide all medical services in the northern emirates within a framework of a new independent, financial and administrative system.
Of all the new strategies, MoH is to connect all medical facilities with a state-of-the-art electronic system – these are to be part of the FHA. This new project to take shape is called the health information system “wareed.” The aim behind the system is to attain accuracy, precision, speed and privacy of medical information for every individual who receives treatment in medical facilities; comprising 14 hospitals and over 67 medical centres across the UAE.
This project will save time and effort for medical, administrative and technical personnel, as well as for patients who frequent medical facilities. Each patient will have a single file in line with the electronic system, which can be accessed easily when needed. The receipt of patient information is governed by privacy and discretion and involves the patient’s medical history, previous treatments, check-ups and medical reports. This can help the personnel deal with each case in a scientific and practical way within the framework of using precise and reliable information. The project is to be carried out in phases to link the health care providers within the UAE (whether in the public or private sectors) with MoH, so that all medical, preventive and treatment services can be in harmony with each other, in order to achieve the national health sector goals across the UAE.
MoH has also recently started carrying out an international programme of accreditation for hospitals and medical centres. This programme is expected to enhance and develop medical care in MoH medical facilities and comes from the directions of HH Sheikh Mohammed, which aims to promote and develop the medical sector, together with its facilities. For this reason, MoH has begun taking the necessary steps in order to receive international accreditation for their hospitals and medical centres. MoH has signed a contract to enable one of the specialised institutions in international accreditation to help it reach the international standards for high quality healthcare that have been adopted worldwide.
Additionally, the instructions given by Dr. Hanif Hassan Ali, Health Minister of the UAE, highlight the necessity of retaining the improvements that MoH performs and provides for both nationals and expatriates, in order to gain people’s confidence in the quality of the medical services offered. This goal cannot be reached unless the concerned personnel redouble their efforts and make follow-up visits to reach international standards in the UAE medical sector.
This important refocusing of objectives comes from the wise vision of the political leadership, which realises the prospects of medical practices in the country that focus on promoting and improving the quality of the services offered to people who frequent its medical facilities.
Reliability is about achieving maximum medical care through available resources. This is an integral process which comprises a set of goals through which a hospital or a medical centre can be assessed to establish to what extent either of them can achieve standards and rules designed to promote the quality of medical care. MoH endeavours to improve medical systems by means of involving hospitals and making them a pivotal aspect of the heath care network, as this is a part of the reliability which empowers them to make ongoing improvements so that they can reach maximum quality. This can be achieved by using the principles of reliability to make changes in practices to improve the quality of care offered to patients.
Such reliability also aims to improve the principle of legal liability and accountability of the heath care organisations by opening them up to being questioned by legal authorities and other institutions; such as professional and governmental bodies, patients and members of the wider society. This will assist in regulating their practices in favour of patients and all concerned others.