Ambulatory Healthcare Services Commences Implementation of Malaffi for Schools in Al Ain and Western Region in Cooperation with Abu Dhabi Education Council

• Initiative to Benefit 142 Public Schools in Al Ain and Western Region
• 183 Nurses to Undergo Training on Effective Implementation

Abu Dhabi-UAE: 4 September, 2013 – Ambulatory Healthcare Services (AHS), a part of the Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA), today announced plans to roll out Malaffi, SEHA's digital health record system, across 142 public schools in Al Ain and the Western Region.

The initiative aims to enhance the provision of healthcare services to students through achieving a ‘one patient, one comprehensive health record' for 111 public schools in Al Ain and 31 in the Western Region for the current academic year.

Malaffi, which adheres to the legal, regulatory and accreditation requirements of Abu Dhabi, is a unified suite of digital solutions that help streamline processes, reduce administrative costs and improve patients' safety. The system also ensures that the time spent gathering information is cut down. Apart from eliminating paper dependent manual processes for school nurses, the system eases the generation of statistical reports, secures and backs-up information, creates chronic disease alerts, allows for early intervention, while validating the role of school nurses in facilitating communications with SEHA facilities.

Mohamed Salem Al Hameli, Chief Information Officer, AHS, said: “Our commitment towards improving the school health systems using Malaffi is ongoing. Moving forward, we aim to install the system in at least six schools on a weekly basis across Al Ain and the Western Region. To date, the implementation of the system has helped make students' health records accessible and raised the efficiency of our healthcare services.”

The Malaffi system, in addition to being eco-friendly, provides convenient and quick access for medical staff to the electronic medical  registry documents that includes its sizeable data base of some 2,30,000 patients. The electronic medical registry documents provide details of patients' symptoms and date or duration of illness. Relevant details such as blood type and medicine prescribed, x-rays, and all other examinations related to the patient are also recorded. 

The system eventually aims to expedite the time taken to diagnose illness and treatment administered, reduce medical mistakes and the intake of unnecessary medication and enable medical staff to recognize medicines that a patient is forbidden to take. This is done through a light scanning for the identity number registered on the patient's wrist during an earlier hospitalization at any one of SEHA's medical centers. A similar alert on administering new medication is also created.

The implementation of the electronic system further simplifies the process of transferring data from school-to-school in the event of a student's transfer. It also ensures continuity in service provision should the student choose to use AHS-SEHA clinics even after graduating from school. 

The Department of Information Technology at AHS plans to conduct a three-day training session for 183 nurses including 42 from the Western Region, and 141 from Al Ain.  Each session will include some 13 nurses throughout the training to ensure that the trainees are offered individual and concrete explanations of the guidelines and implementation of the system.

Al Hameli added: “As part of our initiative to integrate advanced technology systems into our network, we have allocated 10 instructors and eight charge nurses to coach the school nurses. We also follow up on the implementation process to help achieve optimal results. We hope to complete the implementation of the system in Al Ain by February 2014 and in the Western region by May next year.”

AHS commenced the installation and migration of the system in September last year in collaboration with Abu Dhabi Education Council (ADEC). Since its inception, the Malaffi has been introduced in 123 public schools across the Abu Dhabi island and middle region.