Running a Dubai hospital group on one record, from NABIDH to the patient's phone

A Dubai hospital group runs best when every site writes to one record that meets NABIDH standards, answers patients in Arabic and English from one front desk, and gives each patient one app across every hospital and clinic in the group. Dubai has the scale to reward that, with about 5,800 licensed facilities and 55 hospitals in 2025.

A market built for groups

Dubai's private health sector grew by more than 8% in 2025, to about 5,800 licensed facilities, including 55 hospitals, 60 day-surgery centres and 126 general medical clinics.¹ The private workforce passed 69,400 professionals, up from 64,100 a year earlier.¹ Every new site a group opens adds patients, doctors and records to the same network, so the systems underneath decide how much of that growth turns into better care and stronger margins.

Groups already share one exchange. By the end of June 2025, NABIDH held more than 10.41 million medical records from nearly 1,888 licensed facilities and 53,659 healthcare professionals, sent through 91 electronic medical record systems.² A group that runs every site on one record turns that exchange into a single view of each patient across its network.

What NABIDH asks of every site

Each facility in a group is licensed on its own. To activate a facility licence, the DHA asks for evidence of an electronic medical record that complies with the NABIDH Minimum Data Set, connectivity requirements and other NABIDH standards, and a copy of the approval email for tested connectivity with NABIDH.³ A group that standardises on one record repeats a proven set-up at each new site, instead of starting again.

The DHA's interoperability standard applies to all DHA licensed health facilities. Its stated purpose is the trusted and secured flow of information among patients, healthcare providers, funders and health regulators.⁴ It names HL7 version 2 as the recommended standard for accessing and submitting data, and says systems should also support FHIR and IHE messaging.⁴ The IHE profiles it lists include cross-referencing patient identifiers from several identifier domains, which is exactly the problem a group with many sites needs solved.⁴

wai is built to connect to NABIDH. We set up your clinic's connection with you.

One patient, one identity, every site

Federal Law No. 2 of 2019 asks health authorities and providers to record the Emirates ID number in all health transactions, records and files, and to ensure their information systems are compatible and interoperate so that health data can be exchanged.⁵ For a group, that means one identity per patient across hospitals, clinics and day-surgery centres, and one history every doctor in the group can trust.

The same law sets a minimum retention period of 25 years from the last health procedure, and says health data about care given in the UAE may not be stored, processed or transferred outside the country unless a health authority resolution allows it.⁵ wai hosts your clinic's records in the UAE, under the UAE's rules. We set this up with your clinic.

Groups across more than one emirate

Many Dubai groups also run hospitals in Abu Dhabi, where Malaffi is the health information exchange that connects public and private providers in the emirate.⁶ A group that keeps one record inside its own network, and sends to each emirate's exchange from it, gives its doctors one history wherever the patient is seen. wai is built to connect to Malaffi. We set up your clinic's connection with you.

Consent handled once, honoured everywhere

The DHA does not require consent for a facility to upload records to NABIDH, and the facility's general consent form should include a clause on sharing with NABIDH.⁷ A patient may opt out through a process the DHA manages, and the facility keeps sending their records with the identifiers anonymised.⁷ In a group, a patient's choice recorded at one site should travel with them to every other site, which one record makes simple.

One front desk for the whole group

Patients write to a group the way they write to anyone, on WhatsApp, by email and through the website, in Arabic and English, at any hour. A group that answers every enquiry within the hour wins more of them. Research published in the Harvard Business Review found that firms that contacted a new enquiry within an hour were nearly seven times as likely to have a meaningful conversation as those that waited even an hour longer.⁸

wai Admin gives the whole group one thread per patient across WhatsApp, email, web forms and calls, answers in Arabic and English day and night, offers a time at the right site and takes the fee at booking. Each site's team sees its own day, and the group sees all of it.

Doctors who finish on time at every site

A group's doctors are its largest asset, and documentation is where their evenings go. In a randomised trial of 66 practitioners published in NEJM AI, an ambient AI scribe cut time spent on notes by about 22 minutes a day without lowering note quality, coding or billing compliance.⁹ Across a group with hundreds of doctors, that time returns to patients and to their families.

The DHA's AI policy asks every facility that uses AI to report incidents, train staff and patients, and arrange regular independent audits of AI functionality.¹⁰ One group-wide register of AI tools, kept by one named owner, meets those duties for every site at once.

What a group gains

A repeatable opening for every new site, with the record, the NABIDH set-up and the front desk ready on day one.
One identity and one history per patient across every hospital, clinic and day-surgery centre in the group.
One front desk that answers in Arabic and English, day and night, and books the patient into the right site.
Doctors who leave each site with their notes signed.
One app for each patient, with every visit, result and booking across the group.

Where wai fits

wai runs the front desk, the consultation and the patient's app as one system for the whole group. wai Admin answers and books across every site, wai Clinicians writes the note while the doctor talks and sends nothing until it is signed, and wai Profile gives each patient one app for the group. wai hosts your clinic's records in the UAE, under the UAE's rules. We set this up with your clinic. Our team plans the rollout site by site with your group's leadership, and the first site becomes the model for every one that follows.

Questions

How many hospitals are there in Dubai?

The Dubai Health Authority counted about 5,800 licensed health facilities in Dubai in 2025, including 55 hospitals, 60 day-surgery centres and 126 general medical clinics, according to the Dubai Media Office.

What is NABIDH in Dubai?

NABIDH is the Dubai Health Authority's health information exchange. The DHA's interoperability standard applies to all DHA licensed facilities, and each facility shows a record that meets NABIDH standards, with tested connectivity, to activate its licence.

Does each site in a hospital group need its own NABIDH set-up?

Each facility is licensed separately, and the DHA's licensing manual asks each one for evidence of a NABIDH compliant record and tested connectivity. A group that runs one record across its sites repeats the same set-up at each new facility.

Can a Dubai hospital group keep its records outside the UAE?

Federal Law No. 2 of 2019 says health data about care given in the UAE may not be stored, processed or transferred outside the country unless a health authority resolution allows it, and sets a minimum retention period of 25 years.

Sources

Written and reviewed by the clinical team at wai. Last reviewed 14 October 2026.