Seamless image exchange across multiple, disparate hospitals
- By Philips
- Featuring
- March 03 2025
- 3 min read
Malaffi is the MENA region’s fastest growing health information exchange (HIE) platforms, allowing public and private healthcare providers in the emirate of Abu Dhabi to exchange key patient information, including radiology images, in real time. Clinicians can access a central database of unified clinical records (via their EMR), and from the same platform seamlessly review and manipulate images alongside other relevant patient information. This vendor-agnostic technology allows clinicians to access images regardless of the hospital’s affiliation or PACS system.
At-a-glance:
- Challenge: Build a consolidated, usable patient record while overcoming technology challenges associated with connecting disparate hospitals’ EMR and PACS systems
- Solution: Philips end-to-end, vendor-neutral image exchange platform connected to the Malaffi HIE
- Results: Ultimately, Malaffi’s primary users will have access to radiology images shared by 60+ different sites in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, amounting to approximately 2 million diagnostic imaging studies annually
Building a consolidated, usable patient record while overcoming technology challenges associated with disparate hospitals
Malaffi, a strategic initiative of the Department of Health - Abu Dhabi, UAE, is the MENA region’s first health information exchange platform. It safely and securely connects public and private healthcare providers across Abu Dhabi to provide meaningful, real-time exchange of important patient health information. Malaffi, which is Arabic for “my file,” is one of the fastest implemented HIEs in the world. Malaffi currently connects 83 unique EMRs across more than 2,600 facilities and 47,000 users into one unified platform.
Due to demand from clinicians to access radiology images alongside radiology reports, the HIE was quickly extended to include Philips image exchange platform. This gives clinicians the ability to view holistic patient data from which to make better-informed clinical decisions.
The key driver were our clinicians. They really wanted us to extend our capabilities from providing them access to radiology reports, to also seeing the images.
"Having access to the images is really important to making decisions around care delivery," said Dr Sanji de Sylva, Vice President of Clinical Engagement and Informatics, Abu Dhabi Health Data Services (Malaffi). "Instead of having to repeat expensive tests, they (clinicians) now have access to these images in real time and are delivering care in a more timely fashion."
Malaffi partnered with Philips to bring this end-to-end imaging platform to life. The innovative and award-winning Philips Enterprise Viewer and vendor-neutral archiving solutions to link radiology systems across hospitals, regardless of technology provider, hospital affiliation or location.
The benefits of integrating the image exchange platform into Malaffi’s HIE include:
- Reducing administration time typically associated with retrieving images from different facilities
- Curtailing duplicate and expensive, diagnostic imaging tests
- Improving more timely and accurate care decisions, thereby improving patient safety and experience
The image exchange platform was implemented quickly with a minimal footprint. There was little to no disruption of services while bringing the solution to life.
The Philips imaging viewer enables the display of digital imaging and communications in medicine (DICOM) data, including X-rays, CT and MRI scans, ultrasound images and other diagnostic images linked to the radiology reports. It provides clinicians access to a FDA-cleared image viewer supported by advanced clinical imaging tools.
“A patient with complex medical history that was previously seen by several providers in Abu Dhabi due to respiratory issues and pleural effusion, presented in my clinic. Through the Malaffi Image Exchange platform, I was able to access and review the patients X-rays and scans taken during the past six months and monitor changes. Based on the findings, we as a team made a prudent treatment decision – to closely monitor the condition rather than risk potential harm through effusion drainage, which is an invasive medical procedure. Thanks to this approach, the patient made a full recovery without the need for intervention and was subsequently discharged.” said Dr Muhammad Arif, Assistant Professor of Medicine, UAE University.
In an ongoing partnership with Philips, the Malaffi platform continues to grow with the aim to connect 100% of healthcare facilities that store radiology images across Abu Dhabi by the end of 2023.
“We’ve had a lot of positive feedback about how the platform helped increase efficiency of care,” said Dr De Sylva. “Our clinicians are really looking forward to utilizing images to further add improve efficiencies in the care delivery process, improve the patient experience and to start using radiology AI and machine learning algorithms to support clinical diagnoses in the future.”
