Evaluation of Qatar Health Information Exchange Hub program: a mixed-methods study
"Health information exchange is a national objective that allows sharing of all clinical and administrative data throughout healthcare settings in Qatar (1,2). To achieve the strategic priorities for improved healthcare outcomes in Qatar as set by the Qatar National Vision 2030, the National Development Strategy, the National Health Strategy, and the National eHealth and Data Management Strategy, the Ministry of Public Health is underway to develop and launch the central platform otherwise referred to as the Qatar Health Information Exchange Hub (QHIE-HUB). The QHIE-HUB has commenced in implementing a core central platform for storage of data, national e-Prescription, registries and management solutions, personal health record solution and data Warehouse that provides population health, reporting, and analytics capabilities (3). The Core central platform (Hub) will act as the backbone storing of all health relevant data including government, semi-government, and private entities . The Health Information Exchange will allow access to data across all Healthcare Providers within the country. The other solutions involve the e-prescriptions/pharmacy data and registries of disease management. Patient data will be also managed through the “Patient Longitudinal Record” portal. The QHIE-HUB program and all associated components are hosted on Azure Qatar cloud and shall be integrated to all Healthcare Providers within the country. The program will also be a stepping stone for the Qatar Health Insurance Scheme to support Health Insurance related services. The QHIE-HUB program has been conducting meetings with stakeholders for program implementation since 2022 and the launch of technology uptake is scheduled to happen by August 2023.
The scientific objectives of this project are to understand the impact of QHIE-HUB on patient care, quality improvement, financial costs, resource utilization and patient outcomes. The research team will evaluate the adoption and participation rates of entities in the program and examine the benefits and challenges of the implementation of the QHIE-HUB program compared to other countries (5). The research project will utilize a variety of methodologies to achieve these objectives. These include surveys, semi-structure interviews and data analytics.
The expected outcomes of the project are to generate insights and recommendations for stakeholders involved in the implementation of QHIE-HUB in Qatar. We will be able to 1) understand the benefits and challenges in implementing the QHIE-HUB program in Qatar compared to other countries; 2) examine the adoption and participation rates of entities in the QHIE-HUB program; 3) evaluate the impact of this program on financial costs, quality of care, resource utilization and patient outcomes in Qatar.
The expected impact of this project is to ensure and evaluate that Qatar’s population health needs are met through the adoption and implementation of a health information exchange program. "
Research Project #
UREP30-183-3-058
Molecular Pathological Epidemiology to Understand the Association between Diabetes and Infections
"MPE is an emerging transdisciplinary field that incorporates molecular biomarkers into traditional epidemiologic studies to identify risk factors and explain exposure - disease associations.1 With the advancement of biomedical sciences and the development of Machine Learning (ML) analytical approaches, MPE studies are now feasible and will greatly enhance population-based epidemiologic studies. To our knowledge, no MPE study has been performed in the context of the UTI and RTI risks in DM. With its large population-based longitudinal cohort and the wealth of its lifestyle, clinical and metabolomic data, the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) offers this opportunity at a very low cost.13 Challenges of MPE are paucity of interdisciplinary experts and training programs and paucity of population-based cohorts that include molecular data in Qatar.14 Individuals with diabetes with respiratory tract infections and urinary tract infections were found to be associated with higher utilisation of healthcare services in Qatar.15
We will conduct a hypothesis generating MPE study to identify biomarkers that contribute to the understanding of the association between diabetes mellitus (DM) and infections using the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA).13 We will focus on the urinary tract (UTI) and respiratory tract infections (RTI, pneumonia and flu). In particular, we will leverage the CLSA metabolomic, lifestyle and clinical data to examine the role of biomarkers in quantifying the risk of RTI in those with versus (vs) without DM who received (or not) flu and streptococcal pneumonia vaccination. We will determine the role of biomarkers in explaining the higher risk of UTI in DM and examine the effect of the newer antidiabetic agents (inhibitors of sodium-glucose cotransporter-2, SGLT2, dipeptidyl peptidase 4, DPP4 and glucagon-like peptide 1, GLP1) 16 as well as that of the more traditional ones (metformin and sulfonylureas). Our study aligns with the Qatar National Vision 2030. It will be the first to consider metabolomic and epidemiological data to comprehensively assess the association between DM and UTI and RTI. "
