Dubai, United Arab Emirates, 27 November 2018:  Dubai Health Authority (DHA) signed MoU’s with four international firms under the fifth cycle of the Dubai Future Accelerators programme.

The aim of the MoU is to work together and introduce cutting-edge technologies in the healthcare landscape of the emirate.  The initiatives will help enhance the overall health sector and provide patients with the very best standards of care using latest technologies.

As part of the fifth cycle, the companies will work with DHA for nine weeks. They will present proofs of concepts and pilot projects at DHA hospitals to see how this technology can be incorporated in Dubai

HE Humaid Al Qutami, Director General of the DHA said, “DHA is keen on fostering innovation and implementing the latest technology across its healthcare facilities. We have already reaped the benefits of earlier DFA cycles and successfully introduced technologies such as 3D printing and AI. This platform helps us work closely with international firms and  see how these technologies can be utilized in Dubai. Patient-outcomes and happiness is our core priority and technology has tremendous potential to better patient care.”

Scanbo, is one of the companies that DHA signed an MoU with. It is an AI based healthcare startup. The company has invented a portable and connected device that can capture multiple vitals from the human body and transfer data to mobile app using Bluetooth.

Dr Mohammed Redha, Director of Project Management Office, Informatics and Smart Health at Dubai Health Authority said, “The primary objective of the pilot between DHA and Scanbo is to investigate their solution to monitor eight major human vitals including blood glucose, blood pressure, body temperature, blood oxygen, heart rate, single lead ECG, respiration rate and HRV. The other objective is to use Machine Learning to foresee any deviation in the vitals leading to a better predictive and proactive healthcare system for patients.

“It will help empower patients and improve patient care by early intervention and will empower the healthcare system to have a remote and real time connect. It will also help reduce the burden on healthcare expenses and disease management.”

Another technology being assessed is Proximie, a cloud-based augmented reality platform, which allows doctors to virtually transport themselves into any operating room or clinic to collaborate, guide and support surgeons and healthcare professionals.
The technology is being used in several countries, including across South America, for complicated surgeries for children with cleft lips. It is also being used at different hospitals around the world, as well as medical device manufacturing companies, and teaching hospitals and institutions. 

Dr Al Redha said, “DHA will run a proof of concept (PoC) pilot study. We will connect two hospital sites using the Proximie telehealth and augmented reality technology platform in order to connect subspecialized clinical and surgical expertise from one remote location to patients and clinical caregivers in the second location.”

Pre and Post-Natal screening

P4ML is an Irish company that has designed a (CE-IVD) non-invasive prenatal test (NIPT).  P.J. Moloney, Managing Director of P4ML, said the test is called Eolas Plus and helps detect specific chromosomal disorders as early as 10 weeks to provide valuable information in pregnancy management. “We have developed very specific IP to screen for biomarkers for Fetal Growth restrictions in tandem with our NIPT Test.”

DHA will run a POC study in collaboration with P4ML. The study  will be conducted with Latifa Hospital for Women and Children to test the concept of P4MLs Non-Invasive Prenatal testing (NIPT) analysis in DHA. Their EOLAS Non-Invasive Prenatal Test (Powered by Illumina) is a blood test in Trimester 1 that delivers accurate answers sooner to the clinician on genetic disorders and fetal growth restrictions.  Thus, it allows early intervention to prevent diseases and to shorten the stay of the baby in an NICU after birth.

DHA also signed an MoU with Amico. Its two technologies: the Surgical Navigation Device and 3D imaging device (O arm) will be available in DHA’s Rashid Hospital within the next few weeks. These technologies will assist in brain and spinal surgeries by increasing the accuracy and decreasing the errors down to one or two percent as well as accelerating the recovery for patients. DHA will also be using the ROSA in Q4 2019; the latest generation in robotics to work alongside neurosurgeons providing guaranteed accuracy and eliminating human errors during a minimally invasive advanced spinal surgery.