Background: Health systems aim to provide a range of services to meet the growing demand of Dubai's heathcare system aims to provide a range of services to meet the growing demand of its population health needs and to ensure that standards of easy access, quality, equity and responsiveness are maintained. Dubai Health Authority (DHA) uses health services planning tools to assess the health needs of its population and sets priorities and effective regulatory strategies to achieve equilibrium of supply and demand of healthcare services and ensure adequate healthcare services are available, in terms of both quality and quantity. This study aims to measure the gap between demand and supply in health care services in Dubai at the baseline and to forecast the gap size and type (according to medical specialty, key medical planning units and geographical area) till 2030. The specific consequential aim includes identification of appropriate strategic directions for regulation, licensing, policies, insurance. Methodology: The supply of healthcare services, professionals and medical equipment is captured through a census of all healthcare facilities licensed for practice in the Emirate of Dubai. The demand is estimated using a need based approach, where demand for episodes of medical care are estimated by age and gender and aligned to the internationally defined diagnosis related groups (IR-DGRs). The estimated episodes are then forecasted into the future, until 2030, using three scenarios of population growth (high, medium and low) for the emirate of Dubai. The captured supply and forecasted demand has been categorized into eight key health-planning units (KPUs) to allow for understanding of the population healthcare service needs by main service categories. Using a software for health services planning, a gap analysis between supply and demand is conducted till year 2030. Results: The results revealed a current and expected undersupply and oversupply for some healthcare services by medical specialty and geographical area of the Emirate. By 2030, the largest gaps exists in acute beds, which would require 1,590 additional beds, for acute-same day beds, an additional 1575 beds, for outpatient consultation rooms, an additional 2,160 consultation rooms, for emergency department, an additional 107 emergency bays, and for long-term care and rehabilitation beds, an additional 675 beds. The top specialty needs for these categories include cardiology, orthopedics, rheumatology, psychiatry, pediatric medicine & surgery, gastroenterology, hematology & oncology, renal medicine, primary care, respiratory medicine, endocrinology, rehabilitation and long-term care. Conclusions: There is an existing and growing requirement to support the healthcare services capacity needs for the top service lines and geographical areas with the largest gaps. Future licensing is required to ensure that new facilities are geographically distributed in a balanced way, and requests for licensing that create or augment oversupply should be avoided.

Background: Dubai’s healthcare system is designed to meet the growing needs of its population while maintaining high standards of accessibility, quality, equity, and responsiveness. The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) uses planning tools to assess residents’ health requirements and implement effective regulatory strategies. This study compares trend data from the 2018 and 2022 Dubai Clinical Services Capacity Plan (DCSCP) reports to understand how population changes have impacted healthcare demand and to identify service gaps addressed over four years with particular focus on key medical specialties in high demand. Methodology: This study retained the methodologies used in the 2018 and 2022 Dubai Clinical Services Capacity Plan (DCSCP) reports, capturing healthcare supply through a census of licensed facilities in Dubai and estimating demand using a need-based approach aligned with diagnosis-related groups (IR-DGRs). The data is categorized into eight key health-planning units (KPUs) to highlight gaps across major service categories and assess whether these gaps have been resolved in a rapidly evolving healthcare system. Results: Between 2018 and 2022, there were clear improvements across several key planning units. The shortage of acute overnight beds was resolved, moving from a deficit of 239 beds to a surplus of 1728 beds, an overall gain of 1967 beds. Outpatient consultation rooms also saw major growth, shifting from a gap of 1769 rooms in 2018 to a surplus of 4707 rooms in 2022, a net increase to 6476 rooms. In addition, emergency department capacity increased, and the number of ICU beds also rose from 484 to 691, an overall growth of 43%. These changes represent measurable improvements in acute care and outpatient service capacity. However, despite the addition of 76 beds, long-term care continues to show a shortfall of 138 beds, indicating that this remains a significant gap in Dubai’s healthcare system. Conclusions: Dubai has made significant progress in expanding its healthcare infrastructure between 2018 and 2022, addressing many capacity shortfalls, particularly in critical care and outpatient services. However, challenges in non-acute and long-term care remain, requiring ongoing strategic planning to meet future healthcare needs.

Introduction: Health governance is shifting from reactive decision-making to proactive, evidence-informed policy processes. In Dubai, the Dubai Health Authority’s repositioning as a regulator and health-system steward created a need for a more systematic approach to health policy prioritization, development, and evaluation. Context: Health policy development in Dubai was historically strategy-driven and top-down. Although this supported rapid sectoral growth, it also risked fragmented decision-making, limited cross-system coordination, and inconsistent assessment of policy impact. Drawing on evidence-informed policymaking and Kingdon’s multiple streams framework, the Strategy and Governance Department conceptualized policy development as the alignment of policy problems, technically feasible options, and political and stakeholder legitimacy. Programmatic elements: The methodology uses the Adjusted Priority Index, a semi-quantitative MCDA-informed agenda-setting tool, to prioritize prospective policy research topics according to legal feasibility, strategic alignment, government directives, risk, opportunity, urgency, and expected impact. Prioritized topics are then proceeded through structured policy labs covering problem definition, policy framework development, stakeholder analysis, situational assessment, benchmarking, alternatives analysis, theory of change, implementation planning, and impact assessment. Policy champions, internal guidelines, and recurring workshops support methodological consistency and institutional capacity. Discussion: Early outputs include a three-year health policy agenda, structured policy rationales, transparent prioritization records, stronger cross-departmental coordination, and improved methodological literacy among policy teams and stakeholders. These outputs indicate institutional uptake and implementation readiness, but not final policy effectiveness. Conclusion: Dubai’s experience shows how evidence-informed policy methods can be adapted to a complex and rapidly evolving health system. Formal evaluation is needed to assess implementation quality, policy coherence, and longer-term contributions to health-system performance.