The Dubai Health Authority’s (DHA) newly formed CEO council held their first meeting today.

His Excellency Humaid Al Qutami, Director-General chaired the meeting, which was attended by DHA’s 12 CEOs, where they discussed how to meet the vision of Shaikh Mohammad Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai to provide quality health services to the people of Dubai.

The council will meet regularly to discuss pertinent issues and monitor performance and developmental projects to fulfil the Authority’s strategic goals, which are in line with Dubai Plan 2021.
Earlier this week Al Qutami formed the CEO council for the DHA and assigned members to the council with the aim to ensure integration and coordination between the various corporations and sectors in line with the new DHA structure.
The formation of this council will help accelerate DHA’s plan towards implementing the authority’s new structure; it will help enhance decision-making processes, efficiencies and help improve the overall functioning of the sector.
The new DHA structure was announced earlier this month. It aims to streamline the sector that is one of the growing sectors in the Emirate and emphasized that provision of high quality specialized care, patient safety and satisfaction are at the core of the Authority’s priorities.

Commenting on the new structure Al Qutami said last week ; “The medical sector in Dubai is one of largest sectors with 31 hospitals, around 3700 private health clinics that have around 35,000 employees with more than 8 million patient visits annually in the private sector. Additionally, there are 40 DHA governmental health facilities (DHA hospitals, primary healthcare centres, medical fitness and specialised healthcare centres) with around 13,000 employees that see around 4 million customers annually. Such a large sector needs streamlining and governance framework to enhance efficiencies and further improve patient care, which is our key area. The new structure provides us with an ideal business and operating model to achieve our objectives.”

In line with the new Dubai Health Authority law, DHA will have two new subsidiaries – Dubai Healthcare Corporation and Dubai Health Insurance Corporation

The Dubai Health Insurance Corporation is responsible for managing and overseeing health insurance services in Dubai according to relevant legislation. The Corporation also seeks to ensure quality health insurance for Dubai’s citizens, residents and visitors, protect the rights of policyholders, and design health insurance packages. It will also license and regulate health insurance companies, claims management companies, insurance brokers and service providers. It is also responsible for managing Dubai Government’s health insurance programme and issuing reports and recommendations related to health insurance and health economics.

According to the new organisational structure, Dubai Healthcare Corporation (DHC) is tasked with managing and operating all government healthcare facilities including primary healthcare centres, specialty centers, medical fitness services centres, and public and occupational medical centres. DHC has three subsidiary sectors including: primary healthcare services specialised healthcare services, and medical support services and nursing.

Al Qutami, said; “All health service provision for the DHA is part of this corporation and the idea is to ensure optimum functioning of health entities keeping the primary goal of patient care, safety and satisfaction in mind. We will launch a structure for each DHA hospital taking into account several factors such as the area of their specialization etc. Health services have its own nuances depending on the type of provision of care and thus individualized plans in terms of structure, functioning etc. will lead to provision of specialized care and enhance hospital management functions as well.”

He added that the structure for each DHA hospital would be announced in September this year.

The overall structure also includes three new strategic sectors: Strategy and Corporate Development, Health Regulation and Shared Corporate Support Services.

The Health Regulation sector is tasked with developing licensing regulations for individuals and establishments in Dubai including in free zones; inspecting healthcare service providers and ensuring they comply with laws and regulations; and preparing and approving frameworks for managing health data in Dubai.

Al Qutami, said: “Transparency and accountability are key to uphold the provision of high quality healthcare services and the regulation sector plays a key role to achieve this. We will implement easier medical regulation processes in line with international best practices. We are working on revamping the health governance structure, which will result in increased accountability of hospitals and further improve patient safety and experience. The total number of health professional license increased by 15 per cent and number of licensed facilities increased by about 27 per cent.”