Arab Health: Unlocking the future of healthcare
It offers a guide for the healthcare sector on safely navigating the post-pandemic world
From a large influx of sick patients in hospitals to shortages of critical supplies and severe staff burnout, Covid-19 has put an enormous strain on the healthcare sector globally. However, the healthcare system in the UAE has coped exceedingly well with the challenges posed by the pandemic, while demonstrating its resilience and ability to offer quality patient care through new channels. Care providers have leveraged advances in digital technology, cloud-based solutions, bockchain, AI, robotics and machine learning to improve healthcare delivery across the continuum of care.
While the immediate focus for health systems has been to mitigate the impact of the crisis, service providers are also increasingly looking for ways to thrive in the new normal and manage seamlessly across in-person and virtual care.
Technology and innovation continue to be among the key drivers within the healthcare industry, creating vast new possibilities and opportunities for both the UAE healthcare sector and internationally.
Given the current intensity of disruptions in the sector, the region’s largest healthcare show, Arab Health — running at Dubai World Trade Centre until tomorrow — has gained increased significance, charting the path for the industry to emerge stronger in the next normal with accelerated tech innovations and new ideas.
“Technology and innovation continue to be among the key drivers within the healthcare industry, creating vast new possibilities and opportunities for both the UAE healthcare sector and internationally. Arab Health and Medlab Middle East provide the ideal platform for many companies to showcase their latest innovations and demonstrate how they have applied technology to the benefit and advancement of medicine,” Ross Williams, Exhibition Director, tells GN Focus. “The cutting-edge technology is certainly driving the industry forward, particularly in a post-pandemic world where additional resources are required to reboot healthcare infrastructure.”
Arab Health, now in its 46th year, has brought together over 1,500 exhibitors from 62 countries with 20 dedicated country pavilions, including Germany, South Korea, France, the USA and Italy. Throughout the show, innovation and technology is a key theme, with leaders in the field, including Canon and Philips showcasing their latest product launches.
The Arab Health start-up zone features 13 local and international companies and a further eight healthcare start-ups are on show courtesy of the Italian Trade Agency.
“The theme for the 46th edition of Arab Health is ‘United by business - driving the industry forward’, which underscores the event’s remit to bring the healthcare industry together to work towards constant improvement and drive the industry forward after what has been an incredibly challenging year,” says Williams.
“Manufacturers of medical devices and service providers use Arab Health as an opportunity to showcase their latest products to the MENA region’s healthcare industry. With thousands of products on display, business deals occur every minute of the show generating millions of dollars’ worth of contracts.”
Last year, Arab Health and Medlab generated more than Dh3.7 billion worth of business, a year-on-year increase of 3.7 per cent.
“So, if that’s anything to go by, we’d certainly expect to see the healthcare sector grow this year and next, post pandemic,” says Williams.
For professionals who are tasked with purchasing and procurement responsibilities for healthcare facilities, educational providers and medical speciality associations, Arab Health is the ideal platform to get ahead of the upcoming year’s product needs and familiarise themselves with the latest innovations within the market.
Taking place concurrently this year is the co-located Medlab Middle East. The event spotlights the latest innovations from over 250 exhibitors at the cutting-edge of the laboratory sector under the central show theme of ‘Reshaping the future of diagnostics’.
PHILIPS SHARES ITS VISION ON HOW DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION IS HELPING DELIVER QUALITY CARE
Royal Philips, a global leader in health technology, demonstrates a reimagined future of healthcare, realised through AI-driven clinical collaboration command centres and key telehealth solutions, at Arab Health 2021.
The pandemic has prompted a focus on virtual care as it showed its value as a scalable enabler to help deliver quality care when resources are limited — highlighting the need for a more resilient and accessible healthcare system. Communities across the globe quickly embraced virtual care and collaboration as a safe and convenient alternative to legacy care delivery. In parallel, clinician acceptance grew exponentially as collaboration and connectivity from bedside to web-side became the norm.
Patients, healthcare providers and physicians soon found benefit in the way technology can link people and places together and we started seeing the new shape of healthcare.
“At Philips, we believe that the future of healthcare lies in maximising the opportunities in technological advancements so value-based care becomes a daily reality,” says Vincenzo Ventricelli, Chief Executive Officer of Philips Middle East, Turkey & Africa. “This means tapping into telehealth and increasing access to specialist healthcare professionals who are in short supply and ensuring cohesive collaboration among those experts.”
At Arab Health, Philips showcases transformative healthcare innovations and workflows that facilitate communication and collaboration between technologists and experts — now and in the future, addressing the quadruple aim of better health outcomes, improved patient and staff experience, while lowering the cost of care.