This blog post was written by Dr. Maryam S. Jaffer, Director Data and Statistics, Emirates Health Services; Dr. Bashar Balish, Senior Director, Cerner; and Michel Ghorayeb, UAE Managing Director, SAS.
The future of health care has never been more exciting. Artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics have captured center stage for any business planning on surviving and thriving. Given the pace of technological development, AI is transforming the future on an unprecedented scale. And that includes the future of health care. Governments and health care organizations are enabling future generations to take on key roles in developing and evolving AI, writing the defining chapter in the history of the planet they will inherit.
Advanced analytics, machine learning, and AI represent an enormous opportunity for the health care industry in the UAE and across the MENA region. Convenience and easy accessibility are key to meeting patient expectations. Therefore, the partnership between AI and data analytics organizations – alongside health care professionals – has become vital. By using data-driven insights, health care professionals have the time to focus on a holistic approach for their patients – and most importantly, deliver quality care. Ultimately, these efforts will turn into winning patient trust.
Analytics partnership for health care
Emirates Health Services (EHS) and Cerner, a global health care technology company, recently announced their partnership with SAS, the global leader in analytics. Together they will develop a unique analytics solution to improve the efficiency and quality of national health services in the UAE. Introducing this solution closely aligns with the UAE Centennial Plan 2071, which focuses on increasing the quality of life of all citizens through better health care services.
The solution aims to support decision makers in the UAE health care industry through smart analytics by leveraging the large data of current and potential patients. This includes their past medical history, clinical data, financial data, etc., affiliated with all EHS facilities. Analyzing this data using solutions based on machine learning will help EHS to provide sustainable, integrated, accessible, efficient, innovative and high-quality health care services. This is in line with UAE’s vision and international standards. The solution will act as a decision enabler through its predictive and prescriptive capabilities. These include predicting patient outcomes and forecasting resource use.
Health care transformation a daunting process
“The EHS as the governmental health care entity gets more than 2.5 million patient visits every year," says Dr. Maryam S. Jaffer, Director of Data and Statistics for Emirates Health Services, "which generates a huge amount of valuable data that can be converted into insights for decision making. There is a strong business need to have a technology solution that can deliver accurate, timely, clinical, administrative and operational data to help in monitoring and evaluating the delivery of health care at EHS facilities in an efficient manner.”
“The growing amount and increasingly varied sources of data that are generated," says Dr. Bashar Balish, Senior Director at Cerner, "make digital transformation a daunting process that can require a great amount of technology management, planning and implementation for an enterprisewide analytics solution.”
The solution can deliver prescriptive analysis to help clinicians prepare a focused action approach and quality care management for at-risk patients. This leads to improved health outcomes. In addition, the financial analysis will provide health care decision makers with the insights they need to reduce overall health care costs for chronic diseases.
Democratizing analytics
EHS is democratizing data-based decision making by removing traditional barriers. SAS advanced data analytics simplifies data access and analysis by providing users with purpose-built analytics for a variety of operational and clinical scenarios. Data flows seamlessly between the Cerner Millennium® electronic health record and the solution, making it the catalyst for data-driven health care transformation at EHS. Thus, organizational data leads to actionable insights, thus creating a culture of continuous improvement, achieving accuracy, transparency and agility.
The UAE established EHS to enhance the efficiency of the federal health sector. The organization provides health care and treatment services, takes preventive measures, combats epidemics and diseases, and achieves sustainable development for health care.
Over the past 40 years, Cerner has been working at the intersection of health care and information technology to connect people and systems around the world. Cerner uses the latest technology to create solutions that let communities and people engage in their own health.
This project was highlighted at the Arab Health conference in January 2022 to demonstrate the capabilities of an advanced analytics-driven diabetes management program (AADM).
