The Abu Dhabi Department of Health have started work on their Healthcare Strategy. The three areas of focus being
- Access
- Quality
- Costs
Primary care will become the first point of call. Clinicians will identify the issues and refer patients to the correct specialists if need be, rather than patients contacting specialists directly. Specialists will only engage if the patient has a referral. This will free up specialist’s time to focus on doing their work properly and not having to act as primary care.
Eventually there will be a registry, which everyone in the country will be registered to and all healthcare providers will have access to. They will be able to see the patient’s history immediately, including any drugs previously subscribed. Department of Health will be working with industry experts to ensure there are no patient confidentiality breaches.
Hospitals will soon be registered to the Department of Health website and will begin to submit ‘Certificate of Needs’ where suppliers will be able to see which hospitals require products and services and submit their bid.