Dubai Health Authority organizes workshop to discuss big data and identification of disease patterns.

United Arab Emirates, Dubai, June 18, 2014: Dubai Health Authority’s Health Data and Information Analysis Department organized today a two-day workshop to discuss how to drive health data analytics to improve community health.

The workshop known as ‘ DHA’s First Healthcare and Data Science Workshop,’  was attended by esteemed data scientists from Health Authority-Abu Dhabi(HAAD), Ministry of Health(MoH) , DHA and the GCC countries.

The initiative in line with the DHA’s long-term vision to implement the Dubai Smart Healthcare Model that was launched by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, at Gitex 2013.

Dr Mohammed Al Redha, director of health data and information analysis department at the DHA, said: “There is no doubt that electronic integration in the health sector, directly improves efficiency, accountability and patient outcomes. The DHA is keen to provide complete support and assistance to the health sector to guide them in their electronic journey as we understand that this will directly help further strengthen the health sector and improve community health. Today’s workshop discussed how to drive health data analytics including big data to discover disease patterns, trends, burdens and indicators of quality of life with an aim to use this data to device public health policies that will directly improve community health.

“In today’s time, with the prevalence of chronic lifestyle diseases and other challenges facing the health sector, developing evidence-based policies is essential to seek desirable results and therefore tabulation and analysis of data is of vital importance.”

He added in order to move towards a smart government it is important to be able to avail right information, at the right place, in real-time, both for doctors who are treating patients or for executives  who devise  strategies or make operational decisions.