The United Arab Emirates Ministry of Health has awarded a €48 ($82m) contract to Cerner for a national electronic patient records system.
Under the large-scale national project Cerner will install its Millennium EPR and clinical solutions at 12 hospitals and 60 clinics in the Northern Emirates.
As well as providing a national single electronic patient record Cerner Millennium systems will be used to optimize and automate currently paper-based clinical processes and records.
The prime contractor for the project will be iCapital, a UAE-based company and consortium lead.
The UAE Ministry of Health said implementation of the systsems would take three to five years to complete. Abu Dhabi has already begun developing its own healthcare information system.
“The implementation of the Cerner Millennium solutions will allow us to take a major step forward in the creation of a single, unified patient record and provide one standard of care across all of the Ministry of Health facilities,” said Humaid Bin Mohammad Al Qatami, Minister of Health for the United Arab Emirates.
“We believe patients will greatly benefit from clinicians’ ability to access one unified patient record with automated clinical decision support regardless of where they receive treatment at our 12 hospitals and 60 clinics in the Northern Emirates.”
Cerner Millennium solutions will be used to automate processes in the scheduling, admissions, emergency, laboratory, pharmacy, radiology, surgery, medical records and clinical supplies departments.
Nurses and physicians also will use Cerner Millennium solutions to manage and document patient care through online order entry and results notification and viewing.
“It takes a tremendous amount of vision and commitment to move not only from a paper-based system to an automated system, but also to create a region-wide electronic patient record in the process,” said Rich Berner, Cerner Middle East vice president and general manager.
“This is a major milestone towards the transformation of the UAE’s healthcare system. Cerner’s vision for providing information at the point of care, and its single electronic medical record architecture across the MoH network of provider hospitals are key factors for realizing the objectives of MoH,” said Amro Al Deeb, iCapital CEO.
UAE has already begun development of electronic patient records and says it will integrate existing systems with the new Cerner Millennium systems. The Health Authority Abu Dhabi has also already brought in a system that requires insurance claims to be filed electronically, and plans to introduce more elements in the coming months.
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