A new database will give health officials in the capital access to detailed records on the number of people suffering from heatstroke this summer.
The information will be gathered through a new online system, likely to be rolled out to 38 hospitals across Abu Dhabi emirate in coming months.
The Health Authority-Abu Dhabi (Haad) says it hopes to use the information to plan awareness campaigns and set annual targets for reducing the number of cases.
"One of the reasons we developed this was to monitor the number of heat-related injuries," said Darren Joubert, a senior adviser for occupational health at Haad.
He said the system would help provide data for the authority's annual Safety in the Heat campaign, in which promotional literature is distributed to blue-collar workers to minimise heat-related injuries.
"From this information, we can see the differences in different summers, or in different areas of the emirate," he added. "If we find there are a lot of heat-related cases in specific areas, then we can go there to raise awareness."
The online surveillance system will record all injuries which result in a hospital admission, not just heat cases. Other potential uses include recording road crashes.
The programme took three years to develop, and last year was tested in four hospitals in the capital. Haad is now putting the finishing touches to the system.
"We are doing some minor amendments to the system based on the results of the pilot," said Mr Joubert. "Imminently, we will have the final system ready, and then we will plan the launch."
Jens Thomsen, section head of Occupational and Environmental Health at Haad, said that the tweaks to the system involved adding more fields to the online form, as well as other technical modifications.
"The system is now 98 per cent finalised," he said. "We will launch it soon, hopefully before the summer."
The pilot study, between April and July last year, was conducted with the help of a team from the International Injury Research Unit, at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in Baltimore, the United States.
Adnan Hyder, the director of the unit, said the pilot mostly involved ensuring staff were familiarised with the system and able to input data successfully.
"The pilot has indicated to us that it does take a little bit of effort for hospitals to get used to it, but once they do, it becomes quite smooth," he said. "This system serves two roles. [Officials] will get to know the type of injuries which are coming to the emergency room, so they can prepare better. Also, if you know what's happening out in your community you can think about prevention. From both sides, I think this is an important strategy."
Although similar surveillance systems - such as the US's national trauma data bank - are common in western countries, they have not been seen to the same degree in the developing world.
A similar trauma registry is to be launched in eight hospitals in Abu Dhabi and Al Ain by the end of the year and, while some overlap exists, the two will collect different data for contrasting reasons.
"There's definitely some overlap, because both systems are collecting data on injuries," said Mr Thomsen. "The whole idea of the trauma registry is to collect information on how treatments were applied and which ones were used, to improve the medical management of trauma cases.
"The injury surveillance system, on the other hand, is collecting information on injuries but from a different angle and with a different objective. With the surveillance system we aim to look at the pre-hospital stage, of how and why the injury took place, so we can plot public health interventions and stop them happening again."