Highlights
With healthcare heavily dependent on technology and innovation, King’s College Hospital London Dubai has collaborated with Oracle Cerner to provide a cost-efficient, secure, and scalable foundation for growth and enhanced patient outcomes. This will be the first UAE-based cloud deployment by Oracle Cerner in the region
The last three years have been a testament to how vital technology is to the healthcare industry. And to provide advanced medical care, and enhanced patient outcomes, hospitals need to evolve in order to host a large amount of clinical data and build the capability to support preventive and population health objectives.
KCH Dubai running in the Oracle Cloud Dubai Region will support the area’s focus on promoting technology innovation to drive a thriving global hub for governments and healthcare facilities. Organizations looking for similar capabilities can also leverage the Oracle Cloud Dubai Region.
First for Oracle in the UAE
“King's Dubai and Oracle Cerner (formerly Cerner) have been partners since 2015, and this will be the first UAE-based cloud deployment by Oracle Cerner in the region,” says Romel Khalife, Oracle Cerner’s country manager for UAE and Kuwait. “It will bring a new care delivery model that can provide real-time coordination and information exchange among multiple providers, patients, and locations in the country.”
KCH Dubai brings the best of British healthcare to the region, along with the legacy and brand of King's College Hospital from London. OCI will ensure enhanced access to medical records not only for patients and their families but also to providers in Dubai and remotely, explains Himanshu Puri, Head of Information Technology at KCH Dubai. Tim Sutherland, Director and Regional CernerWorks Executive at Oracle Cerner, adds, “The new technology stack is also a very cost-effective platform, and will allow for more flexibility to meet KCH’s needs.”
Patients at KCH Dubai will get seamless access to health information and care when they move from the UAE to newer markets that the hospital is exploring. “It will also not be necessary for the experts to be based in Dubai as we have many clinical exchange programs and we can cater to care conditions beyond the current scope,” says Himanshu.
Enhancing patient experiences
“We are focused on building this digital platform for KCH Dubai and supporting them to become more connected and interoperable,” says Romel. “This has a direct impact on clinical decisions using evidence-based medicine.”
“We are quickly moving towards implementing more advanced technologies to the existing ecosystem. Additionally, secure and fast data capture and analysis will put more burden on the infrastructure, the core of the eco-system.” says Himanshu. “I believe that with OCI, we will be able to cater to the demand.
In the short term, security and technology will keep KCH Dubai agile and up to date. While in the long run, this will go in line with the hospital’s expansion plan and manage an integrated healthcare network for the future.”
“We are, with this engagement, going to secure ourselves from market conditions with regard to human resources,” notes Himanshu, adding that when the hospital works with partners to manage the hosting, it improves commitment from the current team as they're no longer engaged in the day-to-day operational activities, focusing on incrementally adding value to physicians, nurses, payers, and eventually to our patients.”
Building a regional cloud
Oracle Cerner and KCH Dubai’s recent initiative are closely aligned with the UAE’s vision to become a transformative healthcare hub in the region. Patients’ data privacy will remain within the OCI data center locally and will deliver the latest solutions within the hospital. “If KCH wishes to proactively manage the UAE population from chronic diseases in the future, they will have advanced analytics solutions leading to better healthcare outcomes,” Romel says.
KCH Dubai strongly supports the vision of the UAE in making the country a preferred international hub for healthcare. “KCH has also been highly instrumental over the past few years in promoting and encouraging medical tourism, while closely working with the regulators to uplift the delivery of healthcare in the region,” says Himanshu.
Oracle has established cloud data centers in many countries and has been the fastest growing cloud service provider in the last two or three quarters. “There are cloud regions in the UK and this new UAE cloud region will extend to that, in serving the KCH patients. This will help KCH and Oracle Cerner continue to create smarter and better care for individuals and communities,” says Tim.
Dealing with clinical data
With KCH Dubai already cloud-enabled with Oracle Fusion, HR, ERP, financials, and PCH, and by deciding to go OCI, they will be leading the way to transforming into one integrated health system that goes in line with the leadership vision at Oracle.
“The other thing that we started to build recently is in the research space,” reveals Himanshu. “We will be making an announcement of our collaboration with King’s Research Centre in London in the coming months. As a first public announcement, KCH Dubai will start focusing extensively on genomics. With these two initiatives, we are exploring opportunities of giving back to the communities.”
