Use of AI to predict patients’ future risk of disease in Abu Dhabi

Abu Dhabi, The Gulf Observer: Malaffi, the region’s first Health Information Exchange (HIE) platform, a strategic initiative of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), has added a Patient Risk Profile as a new functionality available to doctors who are authorized to access the platform.

The functionality predicts the level of risk for an individual patient to develop certain chronic diseases or suffer an acute event. The technology behind Malaffi’s risk management solution uses advanced artificial intelligence (AI) 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 (CHF), chronic kidney disease (CKD), 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 utilizes 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. 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 authorized users access to 900 million patient records for more than seven million patients, according to the highest standards of privacy and information security.

Dr. Jamal Mohammed Al Kaabi, Under-Secretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said, “We are committed to developing a healthcare ecosystem that has become among the leading and innovative systems in the world through the latest artificial intelligence digital technologies to improve the quality of healthcare for the residents of Abu Dhabi and the region. Such innovation is pivotal to moving to a preventive-based healthcare approach that will help the transition to value-based care whilst achieving our vision of a healthy Abu Dhabi.”

Robert Denson, Acting CEO of Malaffi, stated, “We continually strive to improve and expand Malaffi as a platform to serve the needs of the healthcare professionals and patients in Abu Dhabi while supporting the government’s digital transformation of healthcare. Having connected almost all healthcare facilities, we can now maximize the clinical big data and the population risk platform already available to the DoH to deliver added value to the Malaffi users.”

Dr. Bakr Saadoon Ismail, Informatics Physician, Health Operations Management, Ambulatory Healthcare Services at Abu Dhabi Health Services (SEHA); Member of the Clinical Advisory Committee of Malaffi, added, “The Malaffi Patient Risk Profile is an exciting and important new development. 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.”

Abu Dhabi continues to cement its position as a leading global destination in the healthcare sector and an incubator for innovation in life sciences and digital health in the region. The emirate is moving forward towards attracting and developing the latest innovations within these areas to adopt the highest standards of health and safety for communities and to raise its position as an attractive destination for investors and specialized healthcare professionals.