This is where Sukhdeep Sachdev, Global CEO, Leader Healthcare, says that the company is bridging the gap and is providing modern tools and technologies. The company sources the very latest equipment and brings it to the doorsteps of the surgeons and convinces them to try and adopt these in their practice. Furthermore, the company has aligned its forces with the vision of the UAE’s healthcare landscape and has structured its policies according to what the nation needs.
With Leader Healthcare celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, Sachdev, in an interview with Daily Dose, reflects back on his journey in the UAE. He came here in the 90s and shares that he worked at a conglomerate for almost 17 years, which he credits taught him a lot about how to be a skilled entrepreneur, and how to be a leader. Leader Healthcare started as a one-man company in 2009 and today it employs over 200 people and is present in 11 countries.
He says: “In 2009, I thought that it was about time to embark on my own journey and I started Leader Healthcare. When I started the company and was hiring people, I was not looking at their CV but at what are their dreams were and if Leader Healthcare could help build their dreams. That is one side of the story. The other side was that we were looking to have a strong organisation that could fill the gap in the marketplace. Dubai is renowned as a trading hub and we wanted to bring the best innovation and technology here.”Sachdev highlights that there are strong institutions and healthcare providers in the UAE, but he felt that there was a need for a strong organisation that could provide them with innovative and creative technology and teaches them how it could be integrated to meet the basic needs of the patient.
“One of our greatest achievements I would say is that we have positioned ourselves as a strong company in the field of healthcare when it comes to technology. We have also diversified in the last couple of years into various businesses for patient care such as providing medical equipment and technology in homecare, providing rehab equipment, and how to help children with autistic disabilities with technology, so that the parents can feel better when it comes to the welfare of their kids, among others. We have also moved onto education in healthcare and that will be the strongest area we excel in, in the next couple of years,” he emphasises.
Focus on Clinical Education
Clinical education is one of the key areas of attention for Leader Healthcare. Sachdev stresses: “We have realised that when you are talking to a physician or nurses, you need people who can speak their language. Leader Healthcare has expanded its team by hiring those intellectuals and team of clinical educators. These educators meet a team of nurses or physicians and make sure that the technology that we are providing is integrated in the healthcare environment.
“When we talk about integration, we mean that they can actually utilise that technology in an effective way. In the end, everyone has got one aim, which is the patient and that’s what Leader Healthcare is focusing on. Our bottom line is that we talk to healthcare providers and see how well the patient can improve with these particular technologies that we are bringing in. The best way is to teach them and educate them through our clinical educators.”
Furthermore, the company is engaged in a number of projects in the region such as in Saudi Arabia. It is also recently in the process of executing a contract with Bahrain Defence Forces and is helping them build a complete virtual hospital. The five-storey structure is over 70,000 square feet, and the company is trying to integrate a complete skill set there, not only in healthcare but also in their military environment and by training medics in the field. In the UAE, Leader Healthcare is in active discussions with Khalifa University Abu Dhabi and are helping them bring state-of-the-art technologies.
Sachdev highlights: “In fact, in the last three months we have delivered unique innovative technologies. One of them is a company called Anatomage, which provides digital dissection. Your finger is your scalpel, and with just one single finger you can dissect the body digitally. Universities will use maybe 15 to 20 cadavers a year, which cost around US$10,00. So, what we are telling them that they can reduce this cost by opting for a digital table, I can bring the cadaver here, I can dissect, and I can zoom, and talk about any part of the body and we can teach multiple number of students at the same time rather than just three or six students.”
In the next five years, Sachdev says, Leader Healthcare hopes to be in every continent. “We have already started working on that goal. We have expanded our operations to India, have gone into the APAC region, with headquarters in Australia, we are in New Zealand and the next step is Singapore.”
He concludes: “We are very excited about our 10th anniversary. The pledge we have taken here is to go on a global path, especially in the field of education in healthcare. We are working on the genes of our people and are helping them to build their dreams and want them to feel that they are a part of an employee-owned organisation. The growth that we have seen in our 10 years has been phenomenal. We are very proud of our people and our team and will continue the building our success story.”
What’s in store at Arab Health 2019?
Sachdev highlights: “Arab Health is going to be full of surprises and that’s been our aim every year. We don’t want to be monotonous. We want to mesmerise people and keep them guessing about what’s in store. This year our showstopper is going to be a company called von Hagens from Germany. We are going to bring live human specimens that will be used for the students of tomorrow. The company pro-duces actual human specimen through a process called plastination. What happens is that it doesn’t give students something artificial to learn but provides them with the actual human specimen. Apart from that, we will have an immersive room. It is part of the technology people have been talking about such as AR and VR. One of the companies that we represent, CAE healthcare has tied up with Microsoft and we will have a showcase of HoloLens, a technology that is widely being used in the industry not just in healthcare. But with that technology again, the education focus can be really enlarged. You will see some really awe-inspiring innovations at our stand H4.D30.”
