Clinic AI in Abu Dhabi, what private clinics and health systems should know in 2026

The private care market in Abu Dhabi

The Department of Health Abu Dhabi lists more than 770 clinics, 1,520 medical centres, 65 hospitals, 950 pharmacies and 8,900 inpatient beds in the emirate.¹ Providers are public and private, and the system is financed through mandatory health insurance, with Thiqa as the exception, from employers or sponsors, the government and individuals.²

Almost every one of those providers now works on a shared record. Malaffi reports 3,147 signed facilities, 3,144 connected, every hospital connected, 4.2 million unique clinical records and 56,192 end users with access.⁴ A private clinic in Abu Dhabi joins a connected system from its first patient.

The rules an Abu Dhabi clinic works under

DoH is the regulator of the health system in the emirate.¹² Its Policy on Use of Artificial Intelligence in the Healthcare Sector, published on 30 April 2018, applies to every DoH-licensed provider and to anyone using Abu Dhabi patient data in AI.² It treats AI as supportive technology, where a person makes the final decision and stays responsible for the action taken.² Clinics using AI must have clear governance on its use, state where AI enters care and what the physician's role is, set rules on access to patient information, and educate the people involved, patients included.²

The DoH Policy on the Abu Dhabi Health Information Exchange, effective 16 April 2020, applies to the whole sector.³ Facilities must seek patient consent for sharing through the exchange, write that consent into their standard consent forms, and tell patients that sharing is part of their treatment.³ Patient data received through the exchange may not be transferred, shared or made available outside the UAE.³

Malaffi is a requirement for every DoH-licensed facility unless exempt, and the deadline has closed.⁵ A facility that has not connected cannot renew its DoH licence, and a facility with a Daman agreement cannot submit claims until it connects.⁵ Federal Law No. 2 of 2019 regulates the use of information and communication technology in health across the UAE, free zones included, and DoH lists it among the applicable laws for the exchange.⁶³

wai hosts each clinic's records in its own country, under that country's rules. We set this up with your clinic. wai is built to meet the Department of Health's requirements for clinics in Abu Dhabi. wai is built to connect to Malaffi. We set up your clinic's connection with you.

The languages Abu Dhabi patients write in

Arabic is the official language of the UAE, and road signs and shop signs appear in Arabic and English.⁷ The federal portal lists Bengali, Farsi, Malayalam, Turkish and Urdu among other widely spoken languages, and Chinese, English, French, Hindi and Russian as the other official languages of the courts.⁷

wai works in any language and is built for Arabic-first care.⁸ Each reply is drafted in the language the patient wrote in, and a member of the team approves it before it is sent.

What a demo shows in Abu Dhabi

The demo opens on a WhatsApp message sent at 10pm, half in Arabic and half in English, from a son in Khalifa City asking whether his mother can see the endocrinologist on Sunday morning. wai reads it in the family's thread, checks the doctor's busy times in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar, and drafts a reply in Arabic with two open times. The coordinator approves it before the evening is out.

The booking link takes a deposit in dirhams by card or Apple Pay through the clinic's own Stripe account, with the clinic as merchant of record. The family receives a confirmation, a receipt and an intake questionnaire.

On Sunday the doctor tells the patient the scribe is on, then reads the drafted note, edits it and signs. Codes come from the signed note and the claim is prepared for the insurer, for the team to check. Every draft, approval and signature is logged and exportable.

For health systems, government and insurers in Abu Dhabi

A hospital group, an insurer or a government programme in the emirate can commission a system built on wai for one defined care pathway, with records hosted in the UAE and the rights to its data, configuration and models written into the contract. The work starts with a pathway and measures agreed with clinicians, as the organisations page sets out, and answers the DoH AI policy's call for clear governance and a named point of entry for AI.²

Where to start

First, write down where AI enters each workflow and who makes the final decision, as the DoH AI policy expects.² Second, check that the standard consent form carries the Malaffi sharing consent, and add a line on the AI scribe using the consent form template.³

Third, ask in writing where each copy of the data is stored, and confirm nothing received through Malaffi leaves the UAE.³ Fourth, count last month's enquiries by language and hour, so the demo runs on the Arabic and English messages the clinic really received.

Frequently asked questions