April 30, 2012
E-Health in the UAE: Benefits of a national framework
This is the final post in a series discussing
e-health in the UAE.
Part
One – The current e-health environment in the UAE
Part
Two – The proposed national framework
Our involvement with
the UAE Ministry of Health in the creation of their future view of health care
positions Cerner at the centre of e-health in the UAE. The system we are
helping to create and the measurement system will provide the roadmap to help
the Ministry of Health reach its destination, it helps to identify barriers and
to breakdown the silos of information and processes, as well as reducing the
visibility and communication issues that are slowing the transformation of health
care. Our involvement lets Cerner as an organisation see how we can help with
this transformation by adding value in our areas of expertise and by becoming a
trusted advisor to the Ministry of Health. It gives us a greater understanding
of the issues in advance of our competitors and positions us to help influence
the outcomes.
The continued
development of this system presents a significant opportunity to the Ministry
of Health because it provides them with a “catalogue” of the business processes,
the applications and how they interact. By understanding these interactions the
Ministry can see how every decision it makes impacts health care of its
citizens. IT delivery plans can respond to Ministry and organizational
priorities regarding how components of the architecture should be developed and
delivered. This gives Cerner the ability to plan ahead on the products, services
and support the Ministry of Health will need from the market and hopefully be able
to respond with our offerings to meet their needs. The proposed solutions need
to be adopted by health care provider organizations with a minimum of impact to
their existing systems and accommodate the future priorities and requirements
of the health care sector.
It allows individual
departments within the Ministry of Health, private companies and vendors to
develop solutions, knowing how they fit within the framework and what business
processes that have to interface with and any duplicated functions. Provision
of an open Enterprise Architecture for e-health makes the interfaces available
and will allow for vendor independent purchase, development and integration of
software solutions.
Most important is that
it will allow analytics to identify and merge information to give the care
providers and administrators the information they require in a timely manner to
improve healthcare outcomes for the UAE population, indigenous and expatriate
alike. A secondary benefit to this use of analytics will be the ability to
measure outcomes, their applicability to the health of the nation, and see
where the contributions to any improvement have come from and hence make
informed decisions on the future transformation of healthcare within the UAE.
Jim has been involved at the forefront of the IT sector since
graduating in Pure Physics in 1979, initially working in systems development
where he has a number of worldwide patents to his name. Since 1985 he has
delivered professional services in many locations around the world,
specialising in consultancy and business development for healthcare, banking,
government, and retail. He has worked in the Middle East and Africa since
2000 for IBM and its business partners before being appointed Client Results
Executive at Cerner Middle East in 2011. Since then he has worked closely with
the Ministry of Health in the UAE on the implementation of the Wareed project
and the future direction for helping deliver the MoH's vision for health care
in the UAE.