The Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) has launched the Digital Health Monitoring Center, an innovative digital health AI-powered platform project to curb the spread of communicable diseases based on the data of international organizations such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The UAE thus becomes MENA's first country to use a unified platform to read global health data.

The launch came as part of MoHAP's participation in Arab Health 2022, the leading regional healthcare event, taking place at Dubai World Trade Center, from January 24 to 27.

The platform is one of the most important innovative projects based on the latest technology and data centralization to combat potential global health threats in the future.

It is designed to serve public health goals and develop data analysis to make effective decisions to reduce the spread of preventable diseases, develop early warning systems, and decision-making to address crises and health threats.

Sustainable health system

"The project is in line with the directives of the wise leadership to move to an advanced stage on the road to facing future challenges and consolidating the UAE’s position on the future agenda in health care and enhancing the state’s contribution to the proactive response to health crises," said HE Abdullah Ahmed Ahli, Acting Assistant Undersecretary for the Support Services Sector. "This can be achieved by creating sustainable solutions for the future of healthcare and launching innovative projects and initiatives to consolidate the preventive aspect and combat chronic diseases and integrate artificial intelligence and smart applications in health and preventive services, so as to establish a sustainable health system for the health and happiness of community members.

Paradigm shift

"The challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic showed a pressing need for digital infrastructure to enhance health systems response to future challenges. Hence the launch of this project, which falls within MoHAP's preventive and proactive health strategy," said Ali Al-Ajmi, Director of the Digital Health Department, MoHAP.

He added the project represents an important step in the fight against the global pandemic, by supporting healthcare professionals with all the tools needed to help improve prevention and management of public health issues.

Al-Ajmi made it clear that the new platform is a paradigm shift in the journey of the health sector towards digital transformation and the use of artificial intelligence in order to achieve the highest levels of efficiency in preventive health care services and enhance the quality of outputs.