Abu Dhabi hospitals in Phase 1 of DoH's PROMs programme must have a digital platform live and integrated with DoH systems by 1 March 2027. From then, the regulator holds patients' own account of maternity, stroke and hip and knee outcomes.
DoH Circular 190/2026, dated 24 September 2026, requires the Abu Dhabi facilities DoH has identified for Phase 1 of its patient-reported outcome measures programme to run a digital platform that sends PROMs questionnaires and collects patients' answers for pregnancy and childbirth, stroke, and hip and knee surgery. The platform must be activated and integrated with DoH systems by 1 March 2027. Neither this circular nor Circular 92/2026 names the Phase 1 facilities, specifies a platform or links PROMs to payment. DoH's Pay for Quality standard already pays on quality data for one service line. For an owner planning a sale, the regulator will soon hold patients' own account of three service lines, and a buyer will ask to see it.
What a board member needs before the next meeting on this.
- The Phase 1 list is not public. The obligation falls only on facilities DoH has identified for Phase 1, and neither Circular 190/2026 nor Circular 92/2026 names them. Phase 1 facilities were told to nominate focal points by 15 June 2026, so a facility's own correspondence is the evidence of scope.
- These are outcomes, not satisfaction scores. DoH's Patient Experience Standard defines PROMs as patients' own reports of health status, symptoms, functioning and quality of life after care. Phase 1 covers pregnancy and childbirth, stroke, and hip and knee surgery and procedures.
- The circular is silent on payment. It names no platform, no questionnaire and no sanction, and it does not link PROMs to payment. DoH's Pay for Quality standard already pays on quality data for assisted reproduction; no instrument says PROMs will follow.
- The deadline is 1 March 2027. The platform must be activated, linked and integrated with DoH systems by then, 158 days after the circular's date on our count. DoH has not yet published the integration requirements the circular refers to.
The Department of Health in Abu Dhabi issued Circular No. 190/2026 on 24 September 2026, signed on behalf of its Undersecretary, Dr Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi (DoH circulars). Facilities that DoH has identified for Phase 1 of its patient-reported outcome measures (PROMs) programme must establish and activate a digital platform that sends PROMs questionnaires to patients and collects their answers. Phase 1 covers three services: pregnancy and childbirth, stroke, and hip and knee joint surgery and procedures.
The platform must be "fully activated, linked and integrated with DoH systems" by 1 March 2027, so that PROMs data is collected, submitted and exchanged electronically. That is 158 days from the circular's date on our count. For a hospital with a maternity unit or an orthopaedic list, the regulator will hold patients' own account of how their care turned out.
The phase 1 list has not been published
The circular is addressed to every healthcare facility in the emirate, but the obligation falls only on those DoH has identified for Phase 1. Its predecessor, Circular 92/2026 of 4 June 2026, opened a preparatory phase and told each Phase 1 facility to nominate one clinical and one operational focal point by 15 June 2026 (DoH circulars).
Neither circular names the facilities. A facility in scope should have sent those nominations in June, and nobody outside it can confirm its status from a public source. The first question on any Abu Dhabi hospital with these service lines is therefore a document request: the focal-point nomination and any DoH correspondence since.
Outcomes, not satisfaction
It is easy to file this with patient surveys. DoH's own Patient Experience Standard, effective April 2026, separates the two (DoH/ST/ECES/PXS/V1/2026). Experience measures ask how care was delivered. Outcome measures capture a patient's self-reported health status, symptoms, functioning and quality of life after treatment, without interpretation by clinicians.
Section 3.9.2 of that standard already requires every licensed provider to maintain validated methods to collect, analyse and act on both, and to present them to DoH on request. Circular 190/2026 moves PROMs for three services from a file produced on request to data flowing into DoH systems.
Get the instruments that touch your licence, assessed, as they are issued. See Regulatory Watch
What the circular leaves open
It names no platform, no questionnaire, no collection interval and no specific DoH system. It states no sanction for missing the date, and it says nothing about payment. Enquiries go to DoH's Jawda mailbox and a dedicated PROMs address. Circular 92/2026 promised that detailed timelines would follow, and the new circular refers to DoH requirements it does not set out. A facility cannot finish specifying its platform until those requirements arrive, and the 1 March date does not move while it waits.
Where the data could go
DoH already runs a payment mechanism on quality data. Its Pay for Quality Standard, effective June 2025, links incentives and deductions to Jawda indicators, collects the data centrally through automated integration with Malaffi or Shafafiya, and is being phased in by service line, starting with assisted reproduction for Thiqa members on an incentive-only first cycle (DoH/SD/HCQS/PQS/V1/2025).
The standard lets DoH add programme-specific metrics and calls risk adjustment particularly important for outcome measures. No DoH instrument puts PROMs into Pay for Quality today. On our reading, a validated outcome feed for three service lines, integrated with DoH systems, is the kind of data that mechanism was built to use. Treat that as a possibility to watch, not a plan to price.
What it means for an owner preparing a sale
Today a seller presents its clinical quality from its own records, in its own format. From March 2027 a Phase 1 facility will hold a PROMs record for its maternity, stroke and joint services that it has also submitted to the regulator.
A buyer will ask for that record in diligence, and any gap between what the data room shows and what DoH holds becomes a question the seller has to answer. An owner planning a process in 2027 or 2028 has a short window to see its own numbers first and to fix what they show.
Four questions for an Abu Dhabi hospital board, or its buyer
- Has DoH identified the facility for Phase 1 of the PROMs programme, and whom did it nominate as clinical and operational focal points in June 2026?
- Which platform will send the questionnaires and collect responses, and has its vendor committed to integration with DoH systems by 1 March 2027?
- Who in the hospital owns collecting responses from maternity, stroke and hip and knee patients, and what does that cost a year?
- What will the first months of PROMs data show for these three services, and will management have read it before a buyer asks for it?
The Monday work is short. Confirm from DoH correspondence whether the facility is in Phase 1 and who its focal points are. Ask the record-system vendor whether it has a PROMs module that can integrate with DoH, and at what cost. Name one executive as owner of the 1 March 2027 date. Then decide what the first months of data need to show before the business goes to market. That is the preparation our sell-side M&A practice runs before a process opens.
This brief covers one instrument. The UAE healthcare regulatory tracker carries the full set — DoH, DHA, EDE and the other emirates — with what each one changes and when it takes effect.
Subscribe
The UAE healthcare regulatory briefing
What changed, what it reprices, and the instrument to read. Every second Tuesday. No pitches.
One email a fortnight. Unsubscribe from any of them.