SEHA launches second phase of patient safety programme

Press release

Published December 26th, 2012 - 05:01 GMT

Al Bawaba

The Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), under its programme that it started in 2007, has launched medication process improvement initiative of Malaffi, the electronic medical record system for patients across all of the SEHA hospitals and clinics.

The main reason of Malaffi programme is to facilitate patients and improve their health and confidence on treatment by reducing medication errors, increasing physician access to clinical information, enhancing response time to patients, and eliminating redundant tests and data collection. This way Malaffi eases and speeds up the process of accessing the electronic medical

records of more than 1.7 million patients.

This year, SEHA began the roll-out of an advanced medication process improvement initiative called Positive Patient ID (PPID), which uses barcode technology to scan a patient’s wristband and medication when prescribing drugs to the patient. The software checks the patient and medication information against what is entered in the patient’s Malaffi record and warns the nurse if there are inconsistencies. Barcode scanning of the patient and medication at the bedside automates checking of the “5 Rights” of medication administration – right patient, right drug, right dose, right route, and right time.

Dr. Ali Abdul Karim Al-Obaidli, Chief Clinical Officer at SEHA, said, "This new patient safety process is now live and operational on all nursing units at Madinat Zayed Hospital, one of the Al Gharbia Hospital Region facilities, managed by SEHA, and is currently in pilot mode at Corniche, Tawam and Al Ain hospitals."

He added, "In addition to providing a safer medication process, implementation of PPID has elevated these four SEHA hospitals to HIMSS (Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society) Analytics Level 6 Certification."

HIMSS Analytics Certification is an 8-step process and is the authoritative source on Electronic Medical Record (EMR) Adoption trends. HIMSS Analytics devised the EMR Adoption Model to track EMR progress at hospitals and health systems. The EMRAM scores hospitals on their progress in completing the 8 stages to creating a paperless patient record environment. Attaining Level 6 Certification puts SEHA hospitals in line with the top 10 per cent of all US hospitals as compared to the HIMSS Analytics Q3 2012 EMRAM scores.

Background Information

SEHA HealthSystem

SEHA is the corporate marketing name of Abu Dhabi Health Services Company, an independent public joint stock company that owns and operates all public hospitals and clinics across the emirate. ‘SEHA’ is a phonetic rendering of the Arabic word for health.

The company was established by Emiri Decree No 10 of 2007 and is a leading participant in the reform of Abu Dhabi’s healthcare sector. The reform seeks to upgrade and improve healthcare delivery to the public at a level comparable to the finest healthcare systems in the world. The program began by separating management and regulation – SEHA assumed responsibility for public healthcare centers and hospitals, while Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (HA-AD) was established to regulate the public and private sectors. The two organizations replaced the General Authority for Health Services (GAHS), previously responsible for both roles.