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Accounts system in healthcare

The National Health Accounts (NHA) system will help provide accurate data on healthcare investment across the public and private sector as well as the average amount spent by Dubai families on healthcare every year.

The system is considered a pre-requisite before the mandatory health insurance is rolled out this year. The first report on the healthcare spending for 2011-12 will be released by the end of this year, said officials while announcing the system on Monday.

“Anything without a master plan cannot reach anywhere,” said Engineer Essa Al Maidoor, Director General of the Dubai Health Authority. “This will help us collect data and analysis according to an international benchmark,” he added.

In the last decade, over 150 countries have carried out the National Health Account Survey (NHAS), which is designed by the World Health Organisation (WHO) and helps provide access to accurate and detailed information on healthcare investment and expenditure.

“In order to accelerate the process and progress of improving the performance of the health system in Dubai, with the ultimate aim of ensuring significant improvement in the health status of the population, it is important to understand the financial dimensions of the health sector, and NHA is an important tool to facilitate this understanding,” said Al Maidoor.

He added that the system helps capture all the money spent on healthcare and over a period of time, once sufficient data is collected, the system can provide advanced data on healthcare trends.

Dr Haidar Al Yousuf, Director of Health Funding at the DHA said the system was mandatory before the health insurance scheme was implemented for the emirate.

“The system also allows health authorities to gauge the success of new interventions in the health system and understand how the health sector worked before and after the implementation of any healthcare invention,” he said.

Dr Cornelis Van Mosseveld, health economist with the WHO said: “The information is mainly financial with a focus on expenditure which includes expenditure of the country on promoting better health, on prevention of illness.”