Dubai Health Authority launches Dubai standards of healthcare for diabetes management

• DHA to train more than 700 physicians across private and public sector to ensure unified protocols for diabetic and pre-diabetic care.
• DHA to implement Dubai standards in healthcare for other chronic diseases in future.

Dubai, United Arab Emirates, March 16, 2014:  In a move to ensure early detection and unified management of diabetic and pre-diabetes cases, the Dubai Health Authority announced today that it has implemented the Dubai standards of healthcare for diabetes management.

This means that all healthcare providers in the emirate - private and public- will follow the same standards of care for very diabetic or pre-diabetic patient in Dubai.

HE Engineer Essa Al Maidoor, director-general of the Dubai Health Authority, said: “The implementation of the mandatory health insurance scheme provides us with unique opportunities to detect patients with chronic diseases and to use this data to gauge trends and device evidence-based policies to tackle chronic diseases. We will begin the implementation of Dubai standards in healthcare for diabetes because of the prevalence of the disease.

The cost of uncontrolled diabetes with complications is 25 times more than the cost of controlled diabetes. Therefore, there is no doubt that policies based on concrete data need to be introduced to tackle the prevalence and management of this disease. Using health insurance we can ensure early detection and the second step is provision of high quality care through standardized protocols.”

Al Maidoor said: “At a later stage, the Authority will implement Dubai standard of healthcare for other chronic diseases including iirritable bowel syndrome, bronchial asthma, rheumatoid arthritis and proper use of antibiotics to treat upper respiratory tract infections.”

Dr Haider Al Yousuf, director of health funding at the DHA, said:  “According to 2014 International Diabetes Federation (IDF) statistics, UAE has 740,000 diabetic patients and more than 900,000 undiagnosed cases of diabetes. According to the DHA’s e-claims data of the private health sector in Dubai, in 2014, Dubai had an insured population of 1.9 million, of these 138,000 have type 2 diabetes and 7000 have type 1 diabetes and AED 732 million was the cost of their diabetic treatment. We are in a position to monitor the outcome of these patients through the data collection tools we have. Using insurance to promote preventive screening and then standardizing protocols in diabetes management will go a long way in managing the disease.

“Diabetes screening is a part of preventive screening which is one of the features of the essential benefits package that everyone with mandatory insurance in Dubai is entitled to. Therefore, every person in Dubai that has risk factors for diabetes, will have access to diabetes screening as part of their insurance package and, every healthcare provider in Dubai, will follow the same standards in provision of diabetic care for both diabetics and pre-diabetics.”

Al Yousuf added: “Using international benchmarks and keeping local issues in mind, a DHA team of specialists have devised a set of criterions that all healthcare practitioners in Dubai will have to adhere to. The defined parameters of care include everything from screening to medications and diet.

Several of the screening and care parameters are in line with UAE National Guidelines for Diabetes and factors such as diet have been modified to adapt to the regional needs.”

In ensure that all healthcare providers in Dubai follow the same standards of diabetes management, the DHA in collaboration with Merck Serono will hold several training workshop for more than 700 doctors.

Dr Mohammad Farghali, head of health insurance medical regulation, said: “The training includes eight sessions covering all aspects of screening and care for diabetics and pre-diabetics. The training program is also accredited. The idea behind this program is to ensure everyone is aware of the standards to follow the same management of diabetic care in Dubai.”