| Saeed Abdullah Bin Ishaq, MD, MPH, PhD
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Profile:
Position: Director of Quality And Development Department
Organization: Ministry of Health, UAE
Dr. Saeed bin Ishaq, a medical doctor, holds a master's degree and doctorate in public health concentrating on quality management. In his capacity as the director of quality and development department in the Ministry of Health in the United Arab Emirates, he is responsible to plan for the health information infrastructure. Mr. Saeed bin Ishaq is interested in the intersection between health information and quality management and has been a member of the GCC committee of Quality and Patient Safety since 2004. In addition, his interest in the e-Health resulted in being a member of the e-Government committee of EMRO. |
Topic: E-health implementation and the need for a road map and cultural changes |
Abstract: E-health implementation and the need for a road map and cultural changes
The United Arab Emirates has witnessed development in the field of e-government. According to Center of Public Policy Brown University, the United Arab Emirates was rated in 2005 to achieve 0.5718 in the e-government readiness index. Also it ranked the second amongst Arab countries. On the other hand, it appears that e-health did not witness the same progress as a component of UAE e-government. This presentation is a tentative to analyze the reasons of this drawback.
E-health was seen by Ministry of Health (MOH) a clinical tool that can impact the physical health of the whole community; as well as a business tool that can impact the financial health of the organization. Although the Ministry of Health has adopted an e-health program as a part of the federal e-government plan, several reasons slowed the processes: 1) lack of a detailed road map 2) being e-health a component of the federal e-government. Reforming administrative process within and between agencies often called “cutting red tape and breaking down the silos” was not seen as a main concern. The process of implementing the project did not involve a shift to a different way of working and thinking, with total project timeframes of no more than six months, technical simplicity, modest ambitions for business change, and teamwork driven by business goals.
The need for assessment of the current process of our programs and elimination of those inefficiencies was part of the reality that appeared during the implantation. A need for change in the organizational culture as well as adapting a better approach in implanting e-health was imposed by the reality. This included the following:
- Strategic and tactical objectives definition
- Restructure and reorganize the institutions processes
- Imbed change management into core functions
- Inclusion not exclusion of stakeholders
- Think big but start small
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