Ministry of Health to reinforce regulatory role

Detailing the objectives of the plan, H.E. Hamid Al Qatami, Minister for Health, said: "The strategy reflects the ministry's determination in upgrading services. The ministry will also focus on enhancing its regulatory role and will strive to raise the level of its high calibre scientific, technical and administrative personnel."

H.E. Al Qatami stressed that the ministry's plans are in line with the UAE Government Strategy's recommendations which highlighted healthcare as an important prerequisite for achieving sustainable social development. He said the ministry was quite keen to involve all key stakeholders in the development phase to ensure better service to the community.

The ministry's key objectives include unifying healthcare policies across the UAE, ensuring medical services to all UAE Nationals and residents, promoting best international practices, enhancing the country's capabilities in the field of preventive medicine while combating the spread of epidemics and infectious diseases, increasing the community's awareness on healthcare services and how to benefit from these services.

"The ministry has developed a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) following best international standards. The KPIs will help us monitor the progress of our plans and will ensure successful implementation of various initiatives," he said.

The MoH targets promoting best international practices in all public and private hospitals, clinics and healthcare centres. Training and skills development programmes, expertise exchange initiatives and knowledge accumulation schemes constitute major elements of the ministry's strategy.

Al Qatami said: "We seek to transform the ministry from being a service provider to one with more strategic responsibility. The ministry should focus on developing rules and regulations that govern the healthcare sector. Medical services will be the responsibility of the recently launched Emirates Health Authority that will operate independently at both financial and administrative levels."

"The ministry's ultimate objective is to lay the foundation for sustainable development within the healthcare sector which follows international best practices. Building and sustaining the country's medical expertise is high on our agenda. We also eye increasing the UAE Nationals' contribution to this sector by developing second and third generations of medical experts," he explained.

The strategy covers 35 key initiatives to be implemented during the next three years. These include building an electronic network to connect the country's hospitals and healthcare centres, building a medical archiving system and national health database in association with the UAE e-Government, developing a comprehensive training programme for the ministry's staff and completing more than 25 per cent of the tasks before end of 2008.

The ministry will also work on applying a new self management system for public hospitals to grant them more operational independence and flexibility. Such a system is to be deployed in all public hospitals before end of 2010.

Setting up quality control units in all healthcare facilities, that will help prepare these facilities for accreditation according to international standards, sealing partnerships and co-operation agreements between government hospitals and internationally recognised healthcare providers, upgrading laboratories and introducing new laboratory services are also among the strategy's key initiatives.

On the international level, the Ministry of Health will embark on strengthening cooperation with leading global healthcare organisations to exchange expertise and enhance local capabilities through various programmes.