Dubai: Health care in UAE and Mena region is going digital in a big way, said a top Ministry of Health and Prevention official at the fourth Mena Medtech forum held at the Dubai Health Care City on Wednesday.
The UAE leads in the region in digital health care funding with an investment of $232 million (Dh851.4 million) from 2014 to 2016 and exciting ventures like Dubai 100 and Dubai future accelerators focusing on digital health care systems are leading the way in the region.
Dr. Salem Al Darmaki, special adviser to the UAE Minister of Health and Prevention, Abdul Rahman Mohammad Al Owais, in his key note touched upon the rapid digitisation and tech revolution taking place in the health care sector in UAE and other countries of the region. “The digital revolution has touched on all facets of health care. It is in line with the UAE vision 2021,” said Al Darmaki.
The revolution ranged from paperless patient records, software enabled diagnostic systems for quick detection of infectious diseases, tele-health, robotic surgery and epharmacy, the health care sector has a smart patient centric approach treating multiple diseases and thereby reducing the burden of health care expenditure,
The two-day forum that had several international speakers touched upon several relevant issues such as cyber security for medical devices, innovative digital health technology that is a game changer in the industry, value based health care, bio medical engineering and regulation of the digital health market among many other topic.
Pointing out to the fast growing digital eco system Ivy Teh, global managing director health care consulting of the Economic Intelligence Unit, said that the health care market worldwide was projected to grow from $171 billion to $200 billion in 2020.
“In the UAE and Middle East the health care burden is very complex and high as there is very high incidence of non-communicable diseases with individuals having a combination of conditions such as diabetes, Cardio vascular, hypertension, cancer and so on. The cost of health spending escalates with the progression of the disease and other comorbidities. In the UAE only one per cent of the population account for 20 per cent of the health care expenditure.” Teh said that with digital transformation health care was moving from sickness to health and well-being and preventive care addressing several condition and treating patients in totality.
“Use of technology is helping us move towards patient centric outcomes and personalised medicine,” she added.
Seconding that Neil O’Flaherty, Partner at Baker, McKenzie and Habib Al Mulla said: “The digital health care initiatives which the UAE is undertaking are quite impressive and promise to provide its citizens a strong quality of care in a more efficient manner moving forward.”
O’Flaherty talked about the need for regulatory policies to streamline the digital health care world, “Hopefully the medical device and related regulatory structures developed by the UAE will complement these initiatives, supporting technological innovation while assuring protection of the public health. A flexible regulatory system which supports both of these goals is very important. Regulators, industry and the medical community must collaborate on the specifics of such a system.”
