Dubai Hospitals: Still some way to go to being ‘paperless’

A lot of work is still to be done for Dubai hospitals to become entirely paperless, was the conclusion of a survey carried out by HIMMS Analytics, which introduced the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) model in the healthcare industry.

Rating hospitals from stage 0, which means having no electronic medical record system at all, to stage 7 where the hospital applies a totally paperless medical record system, the median score of hospitals in Dubai this year was 2.5.

However, a lot of progress has been made since the model was adopted in the emirate in 2010, and the fast pace at which measures have been implemented in the emirate was awarded by HIMSS Analytics at the Integrated Healthcare Congress on Wednesday.

The scores are modeled after a benchmarking system named the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (Emram). The findings in Dubai, which is the first in the world to complete the survey across its private hospitals, showed that the majority of these institutions (41.1 per cent) were currently in stage 2, indicating the preparedness of the laboratory, radiology and pharmaceutical departments to operate as required.

The important stage is stage 6, explained John P. Hoyt, Executive Vice President, Organisational Services, HIMMS Analytics USA. “This is when physicians are required to comply with an electronic documentation system, and bar-coding of medication comes in.”

“Medication safety is a hot topic,” he continues. It has been acknowledged that barcoding is the best practice to guarantee this safety. When a medication is scanned, there is very little room for error.”

Dubai Health Autority (DHA) recently launched the smart pharmacy, where medication is stored, categorised and distributed by a robot, minimizing human error. However, specifically challenging in the emirate is the availability of barcodes on medication, as a large part of the medication comes from abroad, making local authorities dependent on global practices, argues Jeremy Bonfini, Executive Vice President, Global Services at HiMSS .

Further, before hospitals reach this implementation phase, they are faced with the challenging task of getting the nursing staff onboard of a fully electronic medical record system, which is part of stages 3 and 4.

About 60 per cent of the documentation takes place in stage 3, where clinical records are created,” said Hoyt. “This is the most difficult part, because it requires the involvement of human resources to work towards a fully electronic system,” added Bonfini.

“It is important that our healthcare system moves from the reliance on human capabilities towards the implementation of smart solutions. This will optimize efficiency and safety, minimise human error promote evidence-based research,” said Essa al Maidoor, Director General of the DHA.

According to HIMMS Analytics, the benefits of adopting the EMR system are impressive. Not only is medical error reduced significantly, mortality rates become lower than expected and the improved database allows for improved risk factor assessment, it concludes.

Financially, the system also pays off.  “A case study in 2010, showed that six hospitals in the United States saved a total of $48.5 million per annum by adopting EMR techology. If a similar performance was achieved in the UAE, it would result in a total saving of at least $640 million (Dh2.35 billion) for the more-than-eighty federal, local government and private hospitals,” said Hoyt earlier.

It is not easy for a government to encourage an entire industry to transform to an electronic system, argued Mohammad Al Redha, Director of Health Data and Information Analysis Department at the DHA. “We cannot just ask hospitals to invest in these systems, as it requires a lot of money. On average, a hospital would spend 2-10 per cent of its budget on the transition.”

Added to that comes the fact that Dubai’s healthcare sector is developing rapidly and many new hospitals have opened in the period that the survey was carried out. But, new hospitals are measured against the highest standards, Redha pointed out.

As policymakers, it is the task of the government bodies to create incentives, he agrees. Although he could not reveal which steps would be taken, he promised that more pressure would be implemented on hospitals in the near future.

During the conference, three Dubai hospitals were awarded for their exceptional performance.

The Canadian Hospital received an award for the highest Emram score, while the Iranian hospital was awarded for its dramatic improvement compared to the previous year, and Kailash Kumar, Director of IT at Mediclinic was presented with the award for CEO of the organization that has been the fastest to comply with the system.

As a country, the Emram scores did not go unnoticed either, with Abu Dhabi taking the lead. “Of the 11.6 per cent of hospitals in the Middle East that  have reached stage 6, eight of these are located in Abu Dhabi and one in Sharjah,” said Hoyt.

There are currently only 109 hospitals that have reached stage 7, of which the majority is located in the USA, and some in Asia Pacific and Europe.

(Image via Shutterstock)

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