Department of Health – Abu Dhabi’s Malaffi platform adds new functionality

Malaffi, the region’s first health information exchange platform, an initiative of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, has added a ‘Patient Risk Profile’ to the platform.

According to the state news agency, WAM, Malaffi connects almost the entire sector in Abu Dhabi, including all hospitals and 2,000 public and private healthcare facilities, and provides more than 45,000 authorised users access to 900 million patient records for more than seven million patients.

The newly added functionality predicts the level of risk for a patient to develop certain chronic diseases or suffer an acute event.

Malaffi’s risk management solution uses advanced artificial intelligence technologies and machine learning algorithms to build predictive risk models based on the available emirate’s population-level demographic and clinical data in Malaffi.

The Malaffi Patient Risk Profile displays risk scores for each patient against a list of prevalent chronic conditions such as diabetes, congestive heart failure, chronic kidney disease, hypertension, and acute events such as a heart attack, stroke, and others.

In addition, individual risk scores help clinicians make informed decisions and interventions to manage and prevent individuals from developing potential diseases or being admitted to a hospital.

To identify patients at risk, the solution currently uses clinical data such as diagnoses, chronic conditions, and laboratory results. Medication information will be added to the model in future releases to further improve the accuracy.

D  Bakr Saadoon Ismail, informatics physician, Health Operations Management, Ambulatory Healthcare Services at Abu Dhabi Health Services (SEHA); and member of the Clinical Advisory Committee of Malaffi, said, “As practising physicians, this predictive tool will help us efficiently evaluate the risks for patients individually and help inform decisions regarding treatment, medication, and advice specific to their profile. The fact that these risk predictions are based on population-level data from the emirate combined with a comprehensive record of an individual’s medical encounters and visits to all healthcare facilities improves the clinical care we provide to our patients.”