The Healthcare Sector Is Reaping Rewards As It Embraces Digital Transformation

The healthcare industry is rapidly transforming as healthcare professionals embrace the use of technology in medical care.

Forbes Middle East, in partnership with General Electric, hosted the “Digital Healthcare: Transforming Tomorrow” virtual roundtable where industry specialists discussed how innovative digital solutions are helping transform healthcare.

The speakers were: Mark Stoesz, General Manager Imaging, Emerging Markets at GE Healthcare; Jeff Terry, CEO of GE Clinical Command Center at GE Healthcare;

Ahmad Yahya, Chief Operating Officer at American Hospital; Dr. Mazin Gadir, Healthcare Advisor for the DHA; Saif Al-Siksek, Business Application and Digital Transformation Director at SEHA; and Prof Hatem Abou El Abbass Ghonim, Consultant Radiologist and Medical Director at Unison Capital Investment in PPP, MOHAP. The session was moderated by Jessy El Murr, Certified Media Trainer and Digital Journalist.

Digital transformation during the pandemic

Digital transformation was already on the long-term agenda for healthcare facilities prior to the pandemic, but it was not necessarily a priority for all. As with many other industries, when the pandemic hit, healthcare facilities were forced to speed up their digitization strategies and find innovative solutions to ensure the safety of patients and medical staff.

Many medical facilities started implementing telehealth solutions such as video conferencing consultations. SEHA gave patients access to their medical records via the SEHA mobile application, where patients could view radiology images and discuss them with their physician during a virtual consultation. American Hospital used AI to develop a COVID-19 AI model that controls the intake of patients into ICU. “Many of the things we have been able to implement was because of the faster transformation into this digital space. It has also accelerated the opportunity that things like AI can offer,” explained Stoesz.

Some healthcare professionals were reluctant to explore the possibility of digital transformation until they had no other choice. Unlike other sectors, digital transformation in the healthcare sector is a clinically-led initiative. Once practitioners started seeing the benefits of technology, it led to an accepting culture and collaborative environment between clinics, IT departments, and administration staff to develop digital medical solutions. “In the clinical landscape, IT has not been an easy sell to clinical professionals. In the advent of this pandemic, many clinical teams have seen the value of technology and how it helped us get through this hard time,” said Yahya.

The transformative power of smart technology in advanced healthcare The benefits of smart technology are numerous, but overall it can reduce costs, enhance the patient experience, streamline operations, save time on procedures and administrative tasks, and improve the quality of diagnosis and decision making. In some cases, deep learning was able to reduce the procedure time of an MRI from 40 minutes to seven minutes. “As these tools get further into the heart of operations, we get quality impacts like reducing the number of babies admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit and reducing code blues of having to resuscitate patients. It starts with saving time, but when you save clinicians’ time, you get throughput and quality benefits,” commented Terry.

Radiology is currently one of the fields yielding the most benefit from digital transformation. The use of AI and machine learning has reduced the time of procedures and provided clearer images resulting in more accurate diagnoses. “Results produced by machine learning are very competitive to that of expert radiologists. Artificial intelligence plays a very important role in the field of radiology when it comes to diagnosis and identifying the stages of breast malignancy,” explained Professor Ghonim.

Although wearable technology is still in its early stages, healthcare professionals are shifting their focus to preventative care through the assistance of wearables. Physicians can now remotely monitor the vitals of patients after a surgery or those with long-term illnesses. This enables physicians to advise accordingly and be more proactive in treatments. “This has been accepted by the community and they were really impressed. This is the care we’re looking at: patient care, providing digital services and technologies to physicians to improve their medical caregiving and conducting operations in a better and more sophisticated way,” said Al-Siksek.

Precision medicine is another breakthrough technology that helps to reduce the side effects of treatments. Using robotic surgery and radiation therapy, physicians can categorize the type of tissue that needs to be treated, spatially localize the area that needs to be treated, and preserve the surrounding tissue.

Many clinicians are starting to focus on a holistic approach to patient care, placing high importance on patient information and patient experience. This results in an improved experience for patients and better monitoring and reporting by physicians. “With the help of their technology partners, healthcare providers are now embedding the use of AI across the workflow of the patient journey. In addition, physicians are able to reach effective and efficient decision-making outcomes with the use of clean and high-quality data,” explained Dr. Gadir.

Looking ahead in healthcare

The healthcare sector has seen the results of digital transformation and will continue to push for more innovative solutions and technology. This initiative is supported by the government, with an estimated $182 billion being invested back into the U.A.E. economy by 2035 to accelerate AI adoption, according to a report by KPMG.

Overall, this is only the tip of the iceberg. As the healthcare industry becomes more accepting of digital transformation, its implementation will be accelerated. Healthcare in the future will be a combination of human knowledge supported by technology, like machine learning and AI, to make accurate diagnosis and treatment more efficient. Medical technology and procedures will see significant enhancements in the future with shorter procedure times and better results.