Health smart

In recent years, Dubai has started getting serious about improving the quality of its healthcare system while at the same time keeping it accessible and affordable. A slew of new initiatives have been implemented, including the modernisation of Dubai’s online services and a new health insurance law, which came into effect in March 2017.

Following the example of neighbouring Abu Dhabi, the new regulations require all employers in the emirate to provide an essential benefits package for their employees. The packages cost between DH500–750 ($136–205) a year. Since the compliance deadline passed, regulators have come down hard on health centres, clinics, insurance brokers and insurance companies violating the new rules, with fines imposed ranging from DH10,000–80,000 (($2,722–21,781).

Dubai’s new health insurance law has set in motion a new wave of mobile technologies designed to help employers comply and improve patient care in the process. But health insurance comparison apps are just the tip of the iceberg. Apps are increasingly being implemented across the healthcare spectrum to empower patients, facilitate better communication and improve efficiency.

Health insurance

“Healthcare costs are quite high in the UAE, and around the world it’s one of people’s main financial concerns,” says Talal Bayaa, co-founder of technology start-up Bayzat. “[The new law] provides peace of mind to many people and means the responsibility to provide support to people who get sick in Dubai is now shared between the insurance companies, the government, the employers and sponsors, and even the healthcare facilities.”

Bayzat started life as an app that allowed customers to compare rates on credit cards, loans and insurance. But since the new healthcare laws came into force, the company has since pivoted to focus only on helping its clients compare, buy and use health insurance.

Today, Bayzat allows its users to compare real-time pricing of over 100 policies and buy an insurance policy that suits their needs, depending on which hospitals they want covered and the policy’s specific benefits. Most importantly for Bayaa, buyers can use their chosen policy with ease. “The real opportunity in health insurance is that, unlike other types of insurance, people actually use it quite frequently – around four times a year,” he says. “So our app makes it very easy to use your policy. For example, if you have back pain, you can type that into the app and it will tell you which specialists you can see, where you can go to get the treatment, and which benefits and exclusions apply.”

Bayzat is far from the only app being used to improve the healthcare experience in the emirate. In 2015, the Dubai Health Authority released two smartphone apps of its own – Dubai Doctors and Sehhaty – to deliver 93 smart services for the public. Patients can search for a doctor or health facility, cancel or reschedule an appointment, renew health cards or request duplicates, view lab results and medication information, and apply for a medical report. Online services are also being extended to improve the Dubai Residency Training programme, a structured system of training and education that bridges the gap between undergraduate medical courses and career positions.

Clinical apps

Other apps being used more widely in the UAE include Citrix’s clinical work flow solutions, which follow physicians as they roam across devices and rooms, providing them with instant access to patient information, and the Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre’s TeleMed App, which gives patients on-demand access to experienced GPs at any time, from anywhere, and in Arabic and English. The app can be used to send photos to physicians, helping patients avoid unnecessary hospital trips for minor concerns.

“Healthcare is increasingly moving outside of the brick-and-mortar hospitals, and is becoming more accessible to patients through ehealth technology such as mobile apps. The benefit of introducing apps into the healthcare industry is leveraging technology to strengthen patientcentric care models that are designed to empower patients and facilitate communication,” says Mina Abdulla Hamoodi, chief executive officer at the Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre. “Through medical apps, patients can directly and conveniently access their medical data, connect with healthcare professionals and more actively manage their care. Apps allow patients and providers to communicate seamlessly and conveniently. This enables physicians to better manage their workload, and allows patients to coordinate their care in the midst of busy schedules and fast-paced lifestyles. Through scheduling appointments, managing claims and the like, apps also bring about overall improvement and efficiencies in administrating healthcare.”

Telemedicine value

The Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre’s TeleMed app is a case in point. “Since launching in 2014, our medical team has diagnosed a range of more than 2,600 different medical conditions for tens of thousands of patients throughout the UAE. This affirms the value telemedicine provides to the UAE patient base,” Hamoodi says.

The most commonly diagnosed conditions are coughs and colds, asthma and allergies, headaches and backaches. “We’ve observed that telemedicine has become the go-to solution for about 30–40% of our patients who are returning callers. And 30% of our callers are rural patients, which is of particular importance in terms of our delivering on our remit to increase access to care,” Hamoodi adds. She explains that one advantage of the centre’s service is helping to alleviate the pressure on emergency departments and outpatient clinics by managing common non-emergency conditions. “This allows them to focus on the more complex and critical cases that require their specialised care. Our contribution in managing non-emergency conditions improves the overall efficiency of the healthcare system.”

Health records

Citrix’s portfolio of solutions offers benefits including simplified access to electronic health records and improved clinical workflows, patient engagement and healthcare IT agility. They have had a positive response from doctors across the Middle East, according to Arthur Dell, Citrix’s director for technology services in the Middle East and Africa.

“Among many others in the Middle East, a good example of a customer that has seen tremendous benefits from our products is Children’s Cancer Hospital Egypt (CCHE),” he says. “CCHE was looking for a solution that would allow its employees to freely access patient data from any point; on any device; at any time; without compromising sensitive medical records. The implementation was carried out across all departments throughout the hospital thanks to the expertise of Citrix local partner eSkyIT and staff can now access electronic health records with ease.”

Hamoodi is also keen to emphasise that medical apps can bring greater transparency to the industry, because consultations and exchanges are recorded electronically. At the Abu Dhabi Telemedicine Centre for example, all patients have a unique electronic medical record in which every case is recorded and securely stored. This enables the facility’s quality committee to review and evaluate the quality of its medical teleconsultations, and ensure continuous improvement.

“Increased transparency is also reflected in the importance of regulations and regulators in licensing medical apps, telemedicine and ehealth solutions,” Hamoodi says. “Technology puts pressure on regulators to evolve regulations at the pace of technological advances. It is important that regulations, such as those issued locally by the Abu Dhabi health authority governing telemedicine, stipulate the requirements for medical app developers and telemedicine providers, such as the requirement for proper documentation of the medical delivery, so it can be reviewed and audited.”

Future tech

Looking ahead, medical apps are only set to become a bigger part of the healthcare sector in the Middle East and globally, thanks to their ability to offer convenience, access to care, and medical knowledge as well as their possibilities for remote monitoring. “Technology also enables cost savings compared with brick-and-mortar based healthcare delivery, and this advantage will be important in the increased adoption of apps in healthcare,” Hamoodi says. She adds that Dubai is set to follow in Abu Dhabi’s footsteps by introducing regulations for telemedicine in the near future, and apps providing access to telemedicine physicians are likely to be one key growth area.

Meanwhile, for Dell, technology has the potential to change the course of healthcare in three other important areas – firstly, quick scanning, which gives physicians the ability to see specific areas of body parts they could not see before such as the heart; secondly, digital therapy, using artificial intelligence to provide patients with care after they’ve returned home from the hospital; and, finally, wearables.

“From fitness bands to smart watches, consumers are widely adopting wearables and, interestingly enough, professionals in the healthcare industry are finding more place for such devices in their field,” Dell says. “Google Glass, in particular, is a favourite, and was recently used by a surgeon to preload CT and X-ray images. Thus, he could view images directly in his field of vision without having to leave the operating room, which meant his concentration could be focused on helping his patient.”

Room for improvement

At Bayzat, Bayaa and his team are focussing on meeting demand from their Dubai-based clients following the health insurance law’s compliance deadline, as well as improving customer service.

“Obviously there was a huge rush of people looking to get insured before the deadline, and we provided a pretty good online experience and seamless process for people to do that,” he says. “But there’s still a lot of offline work we do and we’re looking at how to automate these processes.” After that, the region is the company’s oyster, particularly amid growing pressure for compulsory health insurance schemes to be rolled out in the UAE’s northern emirates to further improve patient care in a fast-modernising nation.