Dubai Health Authority (DHA) recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Dubai Integrated Economic Zones Authority (DIEZ), which seeks to promote cooperation and coordination between the two sides to enhance investment opportunities in Dubai’s healthcare sector, support the formation of healthcare start-ups, and develop innovative technological solutions.

The MoU was signed by His Excellency Dr. Mohammed Al Zarooni, Executive Chairman of DIEZ, and His Excellency Awadh Seghayer Al Ketbi, Director General of DHA.

As part of the partnership, which aims to enhance the private health sector’s investments in Dubai and consolidate the sector’s role in the ongoing development of health facilities, the two sides will cooperate in preparing an integrated action plan to support the development and establishment of start-up companies, specialising in the healthcare sector. This also enables entrepreneurs and companies to benefit from the Startup Incubation Programme and other initiatives that support SMEs operating in DIEZ’s free zones.

The two sides will also develop a special framework to pinpoint the innovation standards of healthcare start-ups in Dubai. They will create a supportive platform to offer expertise, guidance, and research to attract investment opportunities in the field of healthcare technology, all in line with future needs and available capabilities. The partnership will promote expertise and knowledge exchange in developing business systems for licensing start-ups approved for testing research prototypes in Dubai healthcare facilities.

His Excellency Awadh Seghayer Al Ketbi, Director General of DHA, said: “The DHA is committed to building partnerships and strengthening relations with different institutions, agencies, and departments, especially those affiliated with the Dubai government. We believe in the importance and value of joint work and efforts, which directly serve the goals and future aspirations of the Emirate.”

Furthermore, DIEZ will promote the Dubai Health Investment Guide through this memorandum at various related promotional events and activities. This guide outlines investment opportunities in the health sector and identifies promising investment fields and locations that are in demand for medical services.

His Excellency Dr. Mohammed Al Zarooni, Executive Chairman of DIEZ, added: “This partnership reflects our confidence in Dubai’s standing as one of the top global destinations for attracting foreign investments within its highly advanced healthcare sector and in recognition of the investment opportunities provided to investors, entrepreneurs, and multinationals. Through its economic zones, DIEZ will provide business packages, services, and incentives to support companies within the healthcare sector, thus contributing to attracting more investments to the Emirate and supporting the process of innovation and technological development in the sector.”

This article appears in Omnia Health magazine. Read the full issue online today.

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Strategic analytics and forecasting in oncology and rare diseases go beyond numbers, as each number is a patient, and each patient is a life. Oncology is a complicated but important pharma category to forecast with oncology assets becoming an increasingly critical part of company portfolios.

Business strategies, forecasts and analytics are used for research and development, while new product portfolio planning requires different methodology and outputs than other functional areas. In these types of forecasts, we need to adjust for risk and uncertainty in the forecast as the product may not be launched yet.

The key challenge to forecasting is to create a process where the needs of function can be met without compromising the integrity of the forecast approach. It is also important to note how we could create the “one source of truth” across an organisation while having no historical sales data.

When looking at the field of oncology or rare diseases, one gold standard approach is the epidemiological method. Forecasters often start with an epidemiology-based approach, using data and assumptions around prevalence, persistence, compliance, and market share to determine how many patients are taking a drug, and use this to forecast future revenue. This model is used when a product is new to the market, or where patterns of usage are complex (such as rare diseases or cell and gene therapy in oncology).

A forecaster should be equipped to bring and validate different data sources to arrive at meaningful insight. These insights can be useful for building a commercial strategy since they establish a deep and more causal relationship between patients and resulting commercial sales. At the end of the day, forecasters are trying to stay ahead of the curve and steer the organisation and investors in a win-win direction.

However, getting detailed in this space is not always easy. The populations for these treatments are often very specific: many drugs are approved for a certain tumour type, specific line of therapy, and/or only in populations with certain biomarkers. To build an accurate oncology model, forecasters must be increasingly patient-focused and deal with challenges including accurate patient identification, the likelihood of treatment switching and discontinuation, and time on therapy for different patients, as well as pricing changes over time. They must also constantly monitor the rapidly evolving marketplace, where many pipeline drugs mean that standards of care and the competitive landscape can change dramatically in the time it takes to bring a drug to market.

These obstacles force pharma companies to rethink their approach to forecasting in oncology. When projections are misaligned, pharma companies can fail to meet revenue goals, disappointing investors and shareholders. But when forecasters get it right, manufacturers can optimise resources to fit the opportunity and produce plans that deliver innovative medicines to patients who need them.

Oncology is recognised as a challenging area to forecast. According to Precedence research the global oncology market was valued at US$286.04 billion in 2021 and is expected to reach over US$581.25 billion by 2030. The increased importance of forecasting has become even more relevant in recent years, due to the specificity of new-era targeted therapies. These therapies target specific subsets of patients, meaning it is paramount to ensure accurate and robust forecasting to limit over-or under-estimation of product usage.

Here is a list of essential guidance to help business strategists and forecasters navigate the shifting times of oncology treatments and build an effective forecasting approach.

1. Patient segmentation

As oncology treatments become increasingly targeted to certain patient populations, best-in-class oncology forecasts require forecasters to split the population into smaller and more specific segments. For example, for second-line therapy in metastatic lung cancer with improved efficacy for a certain biomarker, a forecaster may need to model eight or more segments in order to understand their potential patient population. While smaller segments are often more accurate, each new ‘category’ of segmentation multiplies the forecasting effort.

2. Monthly forecasting model

Before building an oncology forecast model, it is important to understand the level of data granularity that users demand on an immediate and mid-to-long-term basis. Annual models, albeit easier to build and maintain, do not answer key business questions like monthly sales. It can also be difficult to adapt to an event like a data readout, where changes in forecasting output are needed at a monthly level by business users.

These challenges make annual models inflexible with low precision. On the other hand, a monthly model can offer an ideal time granularity for forecasting because it incorporates oncology-specific dynamics based on available monthly data.

3. Identify the right target patient pool

Forecasting in oncology is different from other therapeutic areas because of the significant need to follow patients through different stages, lines, and treatments as they progress through the disease. As important as this is to do, inaccurate identification of the target patient pool has been a common pitfall in oncology forecasting.

Forecasters should split the population into smaller and more specific segments, and accurately model them based on incidence, recurrence, diagnosis, treatment, and other important factors to maximise the accuracy of forecast outputs.

4. Integrate dynamic patient flows

Forecasters must be able to model patients through the different stages of the disease as cancer therapy models have become more complex. They need to assess the advancement of each patient segment, understand how patients move between the lines of therapy, analyze dosing regimens, rates of progression, remission and discontinuation, patient dependency on old and new drugs or therapies, and more. A holistic understanding of the disease space, as opposed to a myopic one, is critical for forecasters to model such complex and dynamic patient flows.

5. Understand dosing patterns

Understanding the dosing patterns of your target patient population is crucial before building a forecasting model. Each of these inputs needs to be modelled differently because patient segmentation and the associated granularity heavily depend on drug dosing specifications. Duration of Treatment (DoT), persistency curve, and cohort models can be considered for oral targeted therapies that carry a fixed dosing approach.

6. Estimate bolus demand

In addition to estimating the first-time users of your new product, forecasters must also look at two additional streams where patients could potentially flow in from:

• Patients transferred from one product to another midway before completing the line of therapy.
• Patients re-initiating the treatment after temporarily discontinuing it due to tolerability issues. This is called the Bolus demand, and it forms a critical part of any forecasting model.

For those key questions, it is important for the strategic forecaster to have a concurrence with the wider cross-functional team so that there is one number across the organisation.

References available on request.

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Sanobar Syed is a subject matter expert in the field of pharmaceutical business strategy and forecasting in North America. She has a successful career spanning over 14 years with top global pharmaceutical firms, including Beigene, AbbVie, Novartis, and McKesson. With a master’s degree in Organic chemistry coupled with MBA in marketing, she has established and successfully led strategic forecasting and business analytics and excellence across geographies for multi-million-dollar brands across distinguished organisations.

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Saudi Arabia’s healthcare sector is one of the largest in the Middle East, the region is considered a lucrative target for manufacturers, distributors and investors. With progression, regulation becomes a significant subject of discussion. Currently, Saudi Arabia boasts of a strong and comprehensive medical device regulatory policy that helps improve the safety and effectiveness of medical and in-vitro diagnostics (IVD) devices and provides better access to these products.

Medical devices can be introduced into the Saudi market once registered with the Saudi Food and Drug Administration (SFDA). The SFDA has several regulations and guidance notes providing an understanding of the manufacturing, importation, advertising and distribution of medical devices in the region.

These regulations align with the standards set by the International Medical Device Regulation Forum (IMDRF)- a voluntary group of medical device regulators aiming at accelerating regulatory convergence and harmonisation process for medical devices.

According to the International Trade Administration’s Country Commercial Guide, Saudi Arabia’s medical equipment market aims to focus on manufacturing more high-level medical commodities including emergency room equipment, rehabilitation equipment, electro-medical equipment, orthopedic, dental appliances, prosthesis, and advanced wound management. The commercial guide further states that the medical equipment market is estimated at US$2 billion and is predicted to grow at approximately 10 per cent annually.

With the increasing consumption of healthcare services in Saudi Arabia and the focus being on further strengthening the medical device industry, it is imperative to introduce positive changes within the regulatory frameworks.

The global revolution in medical device technology both in diagnosis and treatment calls for the adoption of newer technologies, according to Ali Al-Dalaan, Executive Vice-President of the Medical Devices Sector at the SFDA. The goal must be to align with this technological revolution and strengthen the global medical devices regulatory framework by developing robust standards for artificial intelligence within medical devices, best engineering practices for medical device maintenance and medical gases systems, to name a few.

The major challenges Saudi Arabia will overcome once the regulations are in place is that the medical industry will be able to keep abreast with the new changes/updates driven by rapidly evolving medical technologies such as AI, biotech and digital health. Al-Dalaan added that there is no difference in regulations when dealing with local and global manufacturers, and stresses the significance of regulatory authorities working together to regulate medical devices globally as much as possible.

“The lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic is that the industry needs to enhance its medical devices supply chain due to existing vulnerabilities and weaknesses in the supply chain infrastructure. I think this is a crucial point and important aspect that the industry will have to look at seriously in the future,” he said.

Get insights into the healthcare industry of Saudi Arabia in Omnia Health's latest eBook. Read more [HERE].

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Over the years, the process of accrediting healthcare organisations has been fairly standard for facilities aiming to achieve quality performance and earn a favourable patient safety evaluation. When accrediting organisations, like Joint Commission International (JCI) evaluate healthcare organisations, they highlight areas in which the facilities excel as well as document areas for improvement. Subsequently, they share with the healthcare organisation, recommendations for improvement.

Until it is time for re-accreditation, which is usually three years later, the accreditor typically has limited contact with the organisation, while the organisation works on improving its processes.

However, today, JCI’s accreditation process is evolving with the advent of significant data and various available electronic tools. Discussion around accreditation becoming a continuous process compared to an intermittent approach is also gaining traction.

In an interview with Omnia Health,  Dr. Joel A. Roos, Vice President – International Accreditation, Quality Improvement and Safety, JCI, said: "The improvement process in healthcare accreditation is usually thought of as a linear upward slope, when, in reality, it is more like the stock market, which experiences ups and downs. Therefore, there is a need to partner with healthcare organisations to make accreditation a more continuous process, where accreditors visit more frequently with accredited healthcare organisations or connect with them online between those three years. Such a move would help keep their focus on quality improvement and safety so that the improvement process is thought of more as a straight line, without many ebbs and flows."

The expense of bringing an accrediting team from multiple parts of the world, onsite to evaluate a healthcare organisation for multiple days, is one of the limiting factors of the accreditation process. This is where technology plays a crucial role and can save time and money, by offering remote evaluations that are just as effective and complete. In fact, during the pandemic, JCI survey processes were conducted entirely remotely via computer and cameras.

Dr. Joel A. Roos

“Quality management underwent some drastic changes during the pandemic, subjugated by patients’ immediate COVID-19 needs. To further transform the accreditation process, ideally, we could include online check-ins with facilities every six months, which would eliminate frequent travel costs. This interaction would still allow JCI surveyors to conduct meaningful discussions with healthcare staff and effectively evaluate their collected data, since they would be entrenched in the facility’s quality improvement plan,” added Dr. Roos.

He further explained that there is a need to collect data more meaningfully, which means moving from merely capturing data to fully analysing it and then using it to predict trends. “Once healthcare staff collects large amounts of data, then artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to predict, for example, where unsafe events may occur. So, the data can be used to analyse, predict, and facilitate proactive changes within a healthcare organisation.”

"Quality management underwent some drastic changes during the pandemic, subjugated by patients’ immediate COVID-19 needs. To further transform the accreditation process, ideally, we could include online check-ins with facilities every six months, which would eliminate frequent travel costs. This interaction would still allow JCI surveyors to conduct meaningful discussions with healthcare staff and effectively evaluate their collected data, since they would be entrenched in the facility’s quality improvement plan," added Dr. Roos.

He further explained that there is a need to collect data more meaningfully, which means moving from merely capturing data to fully analysing it and then using it to predict trends. "Once healthcare staff collects large amounts of data, then artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to predict, for example, where unsafe events may occur. So, the data can be used to analyse, predict, and facilitate proactive changes within a healthcare organization."

Middle East maintains high quality

Identifying several JCI-accredited hospitals in the Middle East, Dr. Roos noted that the level of quality healthcare in that specific region is quite high. Reasons for this include the fact that most of the states are well-funded,  attract quality talent and have the capability to hire from all over the world. There is also positive competition among healthcare organisations within the Middle Eastern states, which pushes them to offer the highest quality care.

“Middle Eastern countries are committed to the highest patient safety and quality of care and are not resting on their laurels. They are constantly moving forward and improving healthcare quality. There is a good type of competition among the neighbours, there. What drives them is a combination of resources, commitment, and competitiveness," he concluded.

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This article appears in Omnia Health magazine. Read the full issue online today.

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For many patients, pain is more or less a permanent feature of their lives and has a significant impact on their quality of life. For these patients, it is important to manage the condition so that suffering is minimised for as long as possible. Pain represents a significant clinical, social, and economic problem that has challenged generations of healthcare professionals.

Due to its impact on absenteeism rates, productivity levels, and the risk of quitting the labour market, pain has a bigger economic impact than the majority of other health disorders. The NIH estimates that the expense of chronic pain is greater than that of some of the main diagnoses that are most closely related to the greatest rates of morbidity and mortality, including cardiovascular diseases (US$309 billion), cancer (US$243 billion), and injuries (US$205 billion).

Does chronic pain represent a major clinical, social, and economic problem?

“What we find is that pain remains a global issue, which just cannot be ignored. One-third of the world’s population are in pain every day, and this does not only affect the elderly population. In fact, one in five chronic pain sufferers is under the age of 30. Despite the wide prevalence of pain, there continues to be this inertia for treating pain stigma and expressing it,” says Tess Player, Global Head of Health Professional & Health Influencer Marketing at Haleon.

Haleon’s research reveals that pain can prevent people not only from leading a life they enjoy fully, but also from spending time with others. Pain affects mood. It affects the patient’s ability to do daily tasks and their productivity at work diminishes. This increases pressure on employers, which in turn increases costs from lost productivity.

“What drives us at Haleon is understanding that pain impacts the quality of life in several ways. It not only has a substantial economic burden on patients, healthcare services and societies, but it is evident that pain represents a burden on limited healthcare resources as well, such as pharmacists, primary care, etc., around the world. Our campaign #ListenToPain focuses on the need to shift perceptions and conversations around pain relief to drive active discussion and treatment of pain through supporting experts. This can influence patients to choose self-care, and ultimately reduce that burden overall,” says Player.

Mohamed El Nokrashy and Tess Player

Technology’s role in pain management

Technology has the potential to support patients who are managing pain through self-care and can also support healthcare professionals to get a better understanding of the person’s pain journey, according to Mohamed El Nokrashy, Head of Expert and Communications Lead, Gulf and Near East, Haleon.

“For example, recording pain in instances and severity via applications can facilitate a more productive conversation around pain management. Technology, just like everyday trends, is evolving rapidly and we are likely to see new solutions being developed to help tackle some of the burdens and challenges in pain management. An example is allowing remote monitoring of pain, this will help better assess pain for patients who have less ability to communicate. Technology will definitely hold tremendous potential now and will be the force of the future,” he explains.

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This article appears in Omnia Health magazine. Read the full issue online today.

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Artificial intelligence has become a significant force in medicine, and its use in radiology is no exception. AI’s potential to revolutionise diagnostic imaging is at the heart of a passionate debate within the medical community: will it make radiologists redundant, or can radiologists continue staying abreast of AI developments and remain essential experts in the future of healthcare?

While there are some compelling cases for AI implementations to replace radiologists, it is more likely that they will supplement the role of radiologists rather than replace them completely. In this article, we discuss why AI is unlikely to substitute radiologists entirely and how AI applications in radiology may influence the future of this profession.

Radiologist is a multifaceted job

While current AI systems can perform narrow image recognition tasks, they can’t handle an entire diagnostic workflow. Radiologists’ work entails performing a comprehensive diagnostic analysis with data from multiple sources and drawing on their medical expertise to make decisions about patient care.

Essentially, radiologists are more than just interpreters of images. They connect the findings from imaging analysis to other patient data and test results, discuss treatment plans with patients, and consult with their colleagues.

Interestingly, radiologists of the future will continue to use their expertise and will also be responsible for setting up the technical parameters of imaging examinations that AI performs.

Download the free report: The Future of Medicine: AI's Journey in Healthcare

AI’s accuracy is still a problem

A recent study published in The British Medical Journal compared the performance of a commercially available FDA-approved AI tool with radiologists who had passed the Fellowship of the Royal College of Radiologists (FRCR) exam. To pass the FRCR examination, candidates must analyse and interpret 30 radiographs in 35 minutes and correctly report at least 90 per cent of them.

When uninterpretable images were excluded from the analysis, the AI candidate achieved an average overall accuracy of 79.5 per cent, passing two out of 10 mock FRCR exams. In comparison, the average radiologist’s accuracy was 84.8 per cent, with four out of 10 mock exams passed. These results indicate that AI tools still need further development and refinement to replace radiologists.

Radiological datasets are hard to access

It is also important to consider that the rate of AI advancement in radiology may be slower and less linear than in other industries like autonomous vehicles or retail. For example, while the latest AI art generation tools like DALL-E 2 can produce jaw-dropping results, they have been trained on billions of labeled images publicly available on the internet.

In the medical field, such open-access datasets are scarce and often suffer from limited size, coverage, quality, and standardisation. Radiological datasets are also often guarded by privacy regulations and owned by vendors, hospitals, and other institutions.

What will radiologists of the future look like?

The integration of AI into radiology is likely to be like other automation technologies disrupting different industries. For example, automated checkouts have not replaced cashiers; instead, the technology allowed them to focus on more complex tasks that require customer service and interpersonal skills. Similarly, pilots are still highly sought after worldwide despite autopilot being mandatory on most commercial flights.

Although AI poses no immediate threat to radiologists, their roles will likely evolve as technology advances. The question is not whether AI will replace radiologists but whether the radiologists who can embrace and learn from technological advances will replace those who don’t.

The answer is yes: radiologists who can leverage AI to improve the accuracy and efficiency of their workflow will be better positioned to provide more accurate, efficient diagnoses that lead to better patient outcomes. In addition, there may be a shift in job roles, with many radiologists taking on more managerial and supervisory responsibilities as their primary roles.

A long road ahead

The integration of AI into radiology has the potential to revolutionise medical imaging and diagnosis. Radiologists who embrace and use this technology to better understand diseases and improve patient outcomes will have a significant advantage in the field.

However, while AI accuracy is still a challenge, and access to radiological datasets remains limited, its development is likely to be slower than that of some other industries. Consequently, for the time being, radiologists are still an essential part of healthcare and will remain so in the foreseeable future.

AI applications in radiology
 

Inga Shugalo is a US-based Healthcare Industry Analyst. 

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This article appears in Omnia Health magazine. Read the full issue online today.

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world had to adapt their healthcare systems and implement new policies to contain the spread of the pandemic. More importantly, governments had to deduce different ways to encourage citizens to get vaccinated to achieve herd immunity and provide protection to populations at risk.

Recently, we spoke to Dr. Peter Pitts, former Associate Commissioner at the US FDA, who currently runs the New York-based NGO Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, about the role of pharmacies when it comes to vaccinations.

“Pharmacists can play an important role within their communities as they are highly trained healthcare professionals who tend to be underappreciated. This is, of course, not to say that they should replace physicians; however, it is important to note that pharmacists can be an additional trusted educational source for people within each community as people tend to have easier access to them – not to mention that it also tends to be cheaper to visit a pharmacist.” Excerpts:

What roles did pharmacies have during COVID-19?

During the pandemic, pharmacies that provided vaccinations were a source of convenience, trust, and availability. Many cities across the globe, including Abu Dhabi, implemented pharmacy-based vaccination programmes, which proved to be successful because they provided easier access to the public as it was often difficult, and even scary, to visit a doctor at the time. In addition, people in communities tend to trust their local pharmacists and find it quite easy to visit them when need be.

As such, from there, we begin to ask ourselves how we help increase other types of vaccinations the way we helped increase the number of COVID vaccinations given that the goal is to increase the number of vaccinations that protect people against preventable diseases, especially for children, older populations, and those at risk. For example, we noticed that flu vaccinations rose around 40 per cent when pharmacies were allowed to provide the vaccinations. However, to really make an impact, legislation will need to be put in place to teach pharmacists how to provide vaccinations, as that is currently not part of the curriculum.

Dr. Peter Pitts

What lessons learned in the US do you think can be applied here in the UAE?

The most important lesson we learned from COVID-19 was how many great accomplishments can be achieved when members of the healthcare ecosystem work together. From the successful COVID vaccination programme in Abu Dhabi, there is a lot that can be taken to use in the future. With around 70 vaccines available around the globe, the most important question would then be which ones are most worth introducing in pharmacies and in what order they should be introduced. The UAE has the advantage of a smaller population that is modern and demographically young. When it comes to vaccination programmes, these can make the process of designing the programme itself much easier for the relevant stakeholders and partners. There are many important lessons the UAE can learn from based on the Abu Dhabi programme. Now, it is about deciding what works best within each emirate.

How can we better equip pharmacists to deal with raising awareness?

In the case of raising awareness of vaccines, health literacy becomes quite important because you need to teach people the value of vaccines, and that is where pharmacists can play a very important role, especially when it comes to face-to-face interactions on a daily basis. One thing we saw in the US that can be applied elsewhere was how pharmacists often took the step and started conversations with people who visited the pharmacy even when they came in for something different – it is about taking the opportunity when it presents itself to you.

To help the public achieve health literacy, it is important to implement lifelong learning that starts in schools where children are educated about their health needs and requirements from a young age and are consistently learning when those requirements change. By this, we help people learn to become more aware of their general health and to implement healthy lifestyle choices, and that also includes taking vaccines when necessary. In doing so, we can help promote healthy ageing and help prevent diseases rather than take on the burden of treating them. With time, governments will be able to recognise that vaccines, as a preventive measure, lower healthcare costs by a significant amount.

How do you suggest we tackle the language barriers between pharmacists and the public?

Pharmacists are communications experts, and they are trained to communicate adequately with those around them. One of the problems we see when it comes to vaccinations is the misinformation regarding how they work and what they can do. From what we saw during the COVID pandemic, people can easily be fooled by rumours. Hence, in this case, it is up to the healthcare professionals, including pharmacists, to be respectful to those who lack the knowledge and educate them. By doing so, the public is now able to make comfortable decisions because they are better educated on the matter. To increase compliance when it comes to medications and vaccines, it is important that people do not take them blindly and that, instead, they understand the process and why they are taking one treatment over the other.

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This article appears in Omnia Health magazine. Read the full issue online today.

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Virtual wards in the UK are beginning to see adoption in the National Health Service (NHS), the state healthcare apparatus, as a valuable measure to cut costs and reduce pressure on busy doctors.

The UK’s approach has already won plaudits, with the World Economic Forum noting in a report the transformative potential of this kind of healthcare innovation, amid growing evidence of their efficacy in replacing visits to doctors.

With an aim to reduce hospital admissions by providing the appropriate level of care to individuals at risk of hospitalisation in their own homes, it involves individuals entering measurements of health metrics like heart rate and blood pressure and transferring those into an app, enabling healthcare professionals to monitor and treat patients remotely, responding in real-time if any deterioration in a patient’s health is detected.

The chief benefit of virtual wards is their potential to relieve the pressure on over-burdened health services. With chronic ailments and lifestyle diseases on the rise, constant real-time remote monitoring of at-risk individuals may reduce the need for frequent hospital visits, and ultimately improve healthcare outcomes.

What can virtual wards achieve?

• Increased accessibility: Patients can gain access to healthcare services that may not be available in their local area, reducing the need for travel and improving patient outcomes.
• Cost-effectiveness: Virtual wards reduce the need for hospitalisation, which is typically more expensive than remote monitoring and relies on a limited number of available beds.
• Improved patient outcomes: Healthcare professionals can monitor patients more closely and respond more quickly to any changes in their condition based on accurate, real-time data, leading to better patient outcomes.
• Reduced hospital stays: Patients can receive treatment and monitoring at home, reducing the need for long hospital stays and promoting faster recovery times. As with any development, concerns have been raised over virtual wards.

Disadvantages of the virtual wards model

• Technological barriers: Patients must have access to the necessary technology, equipment, internet connectivity, and technical skills to participate in virtual wards.
• Limited patient engagement: Some patients may feel disconnected from their healthcare providers, leading to reduced engagement and potentially decreased patient outcomes.
• Privacy concerns: Virtual wards require the sharing of sensitive patient information, which may raise privacy concerns.
• Lack of face-to-face interaction: Virtual wards lack personal interaction between patients and healthcare professionals which is often essential for building trust and improving patient outcomes.

There are obvious use cases for virtual wards, but they depend on easy access to technology to work effectively. Countries in the Middle East such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia are perhaps obvious candidates, and with lifestyle diseases necessitating more sophisticated long-term care strategies, virtual wards may be a natural development.

Indeed, major healthcare distribution company Tamer has agreed on a five-year deal in 2022 to facilitate remote patient monitoring in Saudi Arabia. This may be the first of many.

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