Perhaps it would be safe to say that no other industry has seen such rapid and transformational changes in the last decade as healthcare has. Our perceptions, understanding, and even the ethos of the global healthcare systems have changed dramatically to foster a tailored and proactive health ecosystem. 

From technology-driven and advanced medical technology to AI predictive modelling, enhanced genomic variant sequencing, smart wearables, and telemedicine, there has been a fundamental shift from reactive “sick care” to lifelong “healthcare”. Scientific and technological innovations make it possible for us to find predictive and preventative solutions while growing our understanding of disease progression and developing targeted therapies.  

Related: UAE elevates discussions on healthy ageing

The UAE healthcare ecosystem has embraced data insights for decision-making in consumer-driven health, with a growing focus on preventive care, advancements in patient care delivery, public-private partnerships, and digital transformation.  

The UAE government has allocated Dh4.9 billion (8.4 per cent of the total federal budget) to healthcare and community protection in the federal budget for 2022-2026. Investments in innovation, research, science, and technology are key to the UAE’s strategic shift towards knowledge-based economic development.  

Related: How the Medical Technology industry can accelerate MEA’s move towards value-based healthcare

The ecosystem has public and private players working together to provide the UAE with the necessary infrastructure to ensure quality healthcare access to more people at a lower cost and to reduce the burden of disease in the country.  

At G42 Healthcare, we believe that the future of health is being led by preventative, precision medicine, including tailored therapies and proactive lifestyle changes based on high-quality research, more robust data, and cutting-edge technology.  

This novel approach to disease treatment and prevention considers the precise degree of variability in genetics, environment, and lifestyle within and between each person. The UAE leadership acknowledges the importance of this understanding that allows healthcare providers to make a more accurate diagnosis and create specialised action and treatment plans. 

To complement the nation’s forward-thinking healthcare vision, leaders like G42 Healthcare champion cutting-edge technology through the entire value chain to bring in the right solutions and integrated responses to address the healthcare needs of the UAE and the region. 

Offerings in clinical genetics and consumer genomics aim to grant access to treatments based on a genetic understanding of the individual’s body and their specific health profile, helping doctors create personalised treatment plans. This can help improve outcomes dramatically even in some of the world’s most serious chronic ailments and enhance everyday life.  

Some of these initiatives are fronted by Biogenix Labs and Omics Centre of Excellence, located in Masdar City, Abu Dhabi, which are the region’s largest and most technologically advanced omics facilities. These sites allowed for the creation of the de novo Emirati reference genome — a crucial step towards precision medicine that will support a more robust and inclusive healthcare system in the region.  

The flourishing study of omics and multi-omics, including proteomics and genomics, has long-term implications for healthcare, food security, and agriculture, supporting the UAE’s vision for the future. Integrating these fields of science introduces precision medicine, advances animal health, promotes sustainable agriculture, and helps prepare the region to be resilient against upcoming challenges. 

The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the UAE to become a global leader in value-based healthcare. We started fighting the pandemic by establishing the one of the world’s most significant diagnostic infrastructures, the Biogenix Labs – the UAE’s first COVID-19-accredited, large-scale, high-throughput laboratory — in just 14 days. The lab has conducted more than 2.5 million PCR tests to date, assisted in the UAE’s back-to-school programme with its groundbreaking non-invasive saliva testing methods, conducted virus strain surveillance, and helped restart large-scale events in the UAE, such as the EXPO 2020 Dubai, UFC Fight Island, and Formula 1, as well as supported in resuming seamless international travel. 

Today, diversity in the healthcare research space is crucial because not all humans react identically to treatments and interventions; research can correct inaccurate assumptions of uniformity. Treating on a human-by-human basis effects the effectiveness of the medication and the overall quality of care. Currently, very few countries have the capacity for research and lack a robust regulatory framework and capacities to enact broad-spectrum personalised care. Historically, the MENA region is one of the least clinical trials saturated and researched, even though it has a good population size, a large pool of eligible patients, and diversity in genetic profile, lifestyle, and eating habits.  

Insights Research Organization and Solutions (IROS) facilitates cutting-edge, expert research and clinical trials, particularly in the underrepresented MENA region, through trials that include a diverse ethnic composition. This leads to a dramatic increase in the understanding and use of therapeutics for local communities, enabling pharmaceutical companies to develop new medications and drugs intelligently and enter new markets more efficiently.  

As a UAE-based homegrown contract research organization (CRO), IROS brings curated expertise, advanced technology, and robust infrastructure to this region and to the global stage, highlighting the importance of diversity in scientific and medical research. 

Our recent collaboration with the Department of Health, Abu Dhabi, to establish the Centre of Digital Health will accelerate digital transformation across the healthcare ecosystem, from patients, providers, payers, and regulators to pharma and beyond. Our proprietary HealthSight platform powers the unification of multimodal healthcare datasets and enables insight generation through advanced analytics and machine learning. The range of solutions not only helps achieve the primary goal of healthcare — better outcomes through patient-centric care— but also enables a reduction in the cost of care and improved experience for patients and care staff, including physicians and nurses. 

As a physician myself, I believe clinicians are instrumental in placing preventive medicine in their practice to prolong life and reduce the burden on their patients. Technology-first companies should wholeheartedly champion the transformations that aim to bring about a new era of healthcare — one that is preventive, predictive, and precision-led.  

Cardiac surgery patients may experience different levels of disruption to their body producing life-saving hormones during their operations, a new study reveals.

Major surgery and critical illness produce a potentially life-threatening systemic inflammatory response, which is counterbalanced by changes in adrenocorticotrophic hormone (ACTH) and cortisol.

The body’s stress response system, known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis, controls the production of these hormones as a vital part of patients’ response to surgery, but researchers have found that there is no simple graded HPA response to cardiac surgery.

Research by experts at the Universities of Birmingham and Bristol, published today in Royal Society Interface, shows cardiac surgery causes major dynamic changes in concentration of ACTH and cortisol, as well as their pattern of secretion.

Using novel mathematical techniques, researchers developed a model of HPA axis activity that predicts the physiological mechanisms responsible for different patterns of cortisol secretion.

They found that the HPA axis response can be classified into one of three dynamic phenotypes: single-pulse, two-pulse and multiple-pulse dynamics.

Co-author Eder Zavala, from the Centre for Systems Modelling and Quantitative Biomedicine (SMQB) at the University of Birmingham, said: “We’ve found that cardiac surgery patients experience one of three different patterns of HPA axis responses following surgery, which may reflect individual differences in how people respond to this type of stressor.

“These patterns may reflect underlying physiological differences in each person’s HPA axis, but inflammation caused by surgery also appears to be contributing to changes in at least one of these patterns, the single pulse phenotype, suggesting that patients showing this dynamic could be experiencing the greatest inflammatory response to cardiac surgery.”

Researchers discovered that the different patterns of HPA axis response could reflect different underlying physiological changes in adrenal sensitivity, cortisol production and turnover. 

Co-author Daniel Galvis, centre fellow at SMQB, said: “We now need further studies to investigate whether and how these patterns are correlated with clinical outcomes. This will be critical in establishing whether we can use the patterns to identify and classify post-surgical risk.

“Our research also shows the existing model used for diagnosis and prognosis after major surgery and critical illness may not be giving us the full picture. Improved diagnostics based on individual responses could lead to a better, personalised diagnosis and targeted interventions.”

Under normal physiological conditions, ACTH and cortisol are in a state of dynamic equilibration which is disrupted by stressors such as surgery and critical illness.

Dr. Ben Gibbison, Consultant Senior Lecturer in Cardiac Anaesthesia and Intensive Care at the University of Bristol commented: “What is really interesting about this study is that for many years, we have thought that the rise in the anti-inflammatory hormone cortisol was triggered by the inflammation itself - our work shows that this is only true in certain cases and individuals. What’s fascinating is that we can see who these people are by the pattern of cortisol that they produce.”

Researchers addressed the question of how the inflammatory and HPA axis responses interact by sampling blood from a number of patients during and after coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG) surgery to generate profiles of ACTH, cortisol and inflammatory mediators.

The profiles were analysed through repurposed computer algorithms originally developed for facial recognition, while the mechanisms underpinning different dynamic phenotypes were investigated through a mathematical model of HPA axis activity.

Only 1 per cent of the UAE population was over the age of 60 in 2016. By 2050, this figure is predicted to reach two million people, or 16 per cent of the country's population, The UAE is adopting national longevity regulations and encouraging innovators in the field to open dedicated clinics and bring cutting-edge technologies to forefront in line with this demographic shift.

With the region's ageing population and concerns about long-term care on the rise, the UAE has established a pattern for the region's longevity sector by embracing data and analytics, spreading knowledge about healthy ageing, and working towards the formulation of a national longevity policy, explains Emma Brodina, Deputy Managing Partner of Deep Knowledge Group.

Related: Patient Talk Podcast: Health IT market growth in China, aphasia, longevity and other top stories

Aligned with this vision, Brodina tells us that Emirates Health Services (EHS) and Cerner, a worldwide healthcare IT firm, announced a collaboration with SAS, one of the world's leading analytics company, to create a one-of-a-kind analytics solution that would boost the UAE’s national health services’ efficiency and quality.

“The implementation of this solution is in line with the UAE Centennial Plan 2071, which aims to improve the quality of life for all people by providing improved healthcare services. The solution promises to provide smart analytics to decision makers in the UAE healthcare business, leveraging enormous data sets of existing and potential patients,” she says.

Related: UAE’s new strategy develops market for healthy ageing solutions

Within the framework of the ‘Analysis of Smart Home Technology Acceptance and Preference for Elderly in Dubai’ conducted by Arar et al at Ajman University, surveys and interviews were conducted among 110 people in their 40s and 60s. The results showed that 67 per cent of elderly users in the UAE have chronic diseases such as high blood pressure (16.2 per cent), heart disease (3.8 per cent), diabetes (32.4 per cent), or arthritis (10.5 per cent). Thus, smart home technology for health management among the elderly is critical, informs the Deputy Managing Partner as we dive into further questions in an exclusive interview:

What is the role of technology and investment in driving longevity and how will these new senior care facilities be different compared to the current facilities?

Advanced healthcare has contributed significantly to the country's increased life expectancy.

Despite this achievement, the UAE faces the challenge of an ageing population. The population of people aged 65 and up is growing. The National Policy for Senior Emiratis, which is built on an integrated care system to ensure that seniors remain active and have access to government services, has been in effect since October 2018. Senior Emiratis will be covered by a special health insurance plan, according to the policy. New centres will be built to teach them current skills, and new residences will be built to fit their needs. However, policymakers must pay attention to the provision of home-based formal care in the light of cultural considerations.

These initiatives are meant to increase the number of senior care facilities and longevity clinics, and draw cutting-edge technologies and investments to the sector. For example, these initiatives developed the first treatment of its kind that stimulates the body's natural process of creating new stem cells, which are the building blocks of tissue regeneration. Similar programmes have shown to be effective in treating age-related cognitive and physical deterioration, as well as changing people's perceptions of the ageing process. Memory, attention span, thinking speed, focus, and other brain-related executive skills are just a few of the benefits that can be obtained from the treatment. Other treatments, in addition to enhancing cognition, can lower biomarkers linked to the development of Alzheimer's disease.

How will these new integrations be adapted by senior patients with support within facilities and through specialist guidance? Will AI be a key component of this?

The Ministry of Health and Prevention established many initiatives for the benefit of senior citizens as part of the implementation of the National Policy for Senior Emiratis. One of these initiatives is the creation of a database to track the life expectancy of the country's elderly population and the expansion of healthcare programmes and services, particularly home care services. The ministry runs mobile clinics in Fujairah and Ras Al Khaimah's rural locations. Medical care, rehabilitation, natural remedies, preventive measures, dental, optical, dermatological, and diabetes treatments are among the services provided.

Sheikh Khalifa Medical City in Abu Dhabi and Al Tawam Hospital in Al Ain provide home care services to all UAE citizens. The Abu Dhabi Rehabilitation Centre is the only facility in the city dedicated to providing specialised elderly care. It welcomes old people who are cared for by no one else. Diagnosis, consultation, physical therapy, speech therapy, psychotherapy, exercise therapy, water treatment, job therapy, family counselling, and social integration are among the services provided by the Abu Dhabi Rehabilitation Centre.

The 'Elderly Happiness' and 'Home Care (Weleef)' programmes run by Dubai's Community Development Authority ensure that senior citizens are rehabilitated, cared for, and happy. Both Emiratis and expatriates can use the Dubai Health Authority's home care services. DHA offers a wide range of services, including thorough geriatric assessments, nursing care, home safety evaluations, rehabilitation, and nutrition assessments.

AI has the potential to become a fundamental tool for developing, refining, and applying novel solutions for human longevity, acting as the primary catalyst in accelerating progress in this domain and as the trigger in a chain reaction that will lead to rapid progress in the translation of longevity theory into practice. AI is currently a primary driver of the development of breakthrough diagnostic and treatment techniques. Today, AI is also playing an important role in the software and technology development sectors, which have a significant impact on the social lives of the elderly and care approaches.

Furthermore, AI is a modern driving force across industries, and its interconnectivity will have a massive cumulative influence on the longevity sector.

Can you elaborate on longevity’s positioning in key sub sectors such as BioTech, FinTech and InsurTech?

At Deep Knowledge Group, we operate several analytical subsidiaries that run activities in various longevity domains.

Within BioTech, the core scope of activities covers technological insights, market intelligence, and strategic guidance in the high growth and significant opportunity areas of the sector. The analytics across BioTech exploration is focused on mechanisms of biological ageing and target the root causes of ageing–the so-called “hallmarks of ageing”. They involve genomic instability, telomere attrition, epigenetic alterations, loss of proteostasis, deregulated nutrient-sensing, mitochondrial dysfunction, cellular senescence, stem cell exhaustion, and altered intercellular communication. That is why the core idea of doing analytics and market recommendations lies in dealing with the complex set of parameters associated with healthy longevity.

Activities in longevity insurtech cover the progressive and modern insurance solutions (and health and life insurance in particular) that are designed to meet the needs of individuals who plan to actively expand their health span and maintain prolonged periods of healthy longevity. At the same time, longevity insurtech solutions are designed for those who expect to maintain their wealth span, and for insurance providers to enhance their business models and profitability.

The most sophisticated and prospective organisations engaged in insurtech are those utilising Biomarkers of Human Longevity as the basis for tracking whether the elderly are meeting their healthy lifestyle goals. Epigenetic clock tests, that indicate an individual’s biological age, are currently being marketed to life insurance companies to help them calculate an individual’s life expectancy. It is more evident that insurers need a rigorous overall measure of human health risk, and longevity biomarkers can greatly benefit and strengthen current approaches. While the Insurtech sector is the leading example of financial companies onboarding the practical application of Biomarkers of Longevity, we believe that it is just the start of a much larger trend that will involve the financial industry.

Longevity fintech involves the development of products that are aimed to assist the elderly with financial inclusion by taking into account the specific needs of the silver generation. Such products can make the mobile experience easier and safer for people of old age due to the features in combination with cutting-edge healthtech and agetech designed for users who are planning to live healthy, extra-long lives and remain financially stable.

Please comment on SRTIP and DKA’s partnership and what pressing challenges it is addressing in developing the longevity sector.

This collaboration aimed to map the UAE's longevity industry, fostering knowledge of relevant sectors locally and internationally, developing comprehensive stakeholder engagement, identifying major drivers of the industry across the country, and ultimately developing in coordination with relevant government institutions robust national longevity policies to maximise the health and wealth of the nation. It also aims to prepare future leaders to advance longevity as a key component of the country’s future strategic agenda, and enhance the knowledge and career-based opportunities of UAE students by creating a longevity-focused educational programme within universities in the UAE.

The partnership also aims to enhance the knowledge about longevity and promote its adoption nationwide, identify the UAE’s driving forces behind the longevity industry and healthy ageing, and devise an action plan for government entities, enabling them to establish and advance their longevity development agenda.

This partnership is a step toward leading, growing, and commercialising the longevity industry in the UAE. National governments currently sit at a crossroads of major challenges and opportunities.

In 2022 and in collaboration with SRTIP, ‘The Life Sciences in the UAE’ report was released, highlighting major UAE players in the field of life sciences, covering technological trends and advances, analysing existing and projected governmental policies, and providing an overview of underlying economic and financial data. In addition, to refine and elevate the discourse on longevity, Deep Knowledge Group conducted an online event, ‘The Emerging Longevity Industry — A UAE Perspective’, in association with SRTIP.

Lastly, together with SRTIP, we hosted a tech talk under the theme, ‘Health is the new wealth’, as part of the Ramadan Majlis series held at SRTIP premises in Sharjah.

As a diagnostic department of the hospital, the laboratory plays a vital role in disease treatment and prevention. A 1978 study revealed that many physicians, house officers and students overestimated the positive predictive value (PPV) of a laboratory test result when employing prevalence and false positive rate. With the increased use of medical technology in health care, diagnostic test interpretation has become even more crucial.

Challenges and ambiguities with test result interpretation may contribute to diagnostic errors, according to other research. Due to the wide variety of complexity and severity of diseases that primary care doctors witness, they are more likely than specialists to make these errors.

Related: Report: The Evolution of Healthcare – Laboratory Empowerment

Another study furthermore demonstrated that patients are increasingly using patient portals to access their laboratory test results. However, just allowing access does not ensure comprehension. When evaluating their test findings, patients may get confused.

Paying attention to patients' communication preferences for test results might lead to a more effective and responsive method for delivering these findings.

Patients lean towards electronic results

Related: How clinical communication and collaboration platforms can ease information overload – and deliver better patient outcomes

Research was additionally conducted to determine patient preferences for receiving laboratory test results digitally, and to recognise the factors influencing their decision. When their test results were ready, 98 per cent of participants requested to be alerted through short message service (SMS).

All research participants preferred to receive their test results online, and 82.5 per cent (n = 165) expected both normal and abnormal test findings. The main factor for obtaining results online, according to 77 per cent of participants, was to save time, followed by the risk of missing the results (31 per cent). Approximately 40 per cent believed that receiving results through e-mail was more secure than viewing through a hospital website.

The most common sources of dissatisfaction meanwhile are delays in obtaining test results, missing findings, and results that are misfiled or misreported. Patients are especially interested in adopting internet-based technologies to contact with their healthcare providers, access their clinical data, and acquire timely health information, according to the findings of another research.

Laboratory tests, on the other hand, are difficult to understand. Even medical experts, much alone patients, struggle to read them effectively and accurately. Many websites offer patients test results in a tabular format with conventional reference ranges, comparable to what clinicians receive. As a result, people who are expected to benefit the most from these portals may find them ineffective.

Understanding laboratory results

Medicus AI's flagship product, ’Smart Reports’, is an AI-based health literacy and delivery platform that explains and interprets blood tests and medical reports that offers diagnostic laboratories and hospitals a user-friendly experience for their patients to access, manage and understand their health.

Smart Reports is powered by a medical reasoning engine that uses artificial intelligence to encode medical information and the most up-to-date medical recommendations to accurately imitate the reasoning that clinicians use in similar situations. Medicus AI simplifies the medical reasoning into a practical app that anyone can use.

"Laboratories and hospitals can install Smart Reports on their servers and provide patients with easy-to-understand insights which are characterised by intuitive colors and clear visuals. The product is currently available in five languages and is widely used in Europe, China and MENA regions. Medicus AI can tailor Smart Reports to fit the needs of the healthcare provider, as well as reflect and respect local cultures, habits and needs.

In parallel to what we offer patients, we offer a specific lab report to the doctor as well. Therefore, the experience is tailored to both, with the patient receiving a simple explanation of the medical test result while the doctor receives a version listing the most common causes,” explains Medicus AI’s co-founder and Chief Science Officer Dr. Nadine Nehme.

Empowering patients and clinicians

Dr. Nehme says Medicus AI aims to ‘liberate’ doctors and the healthcare providers from any step that can be automated, while empowering patients by allowing them to access and own their health data.

“Those extra five or ten minutes a physician can save can be allocated to communicating with their patients and understand their concerns, improving overall patient outcomes. In addition, for doctors it provides an informed decision based on quick and easy access to patient profile and medical results, automated reports validation and approval based on a pre-set of rules, determined by the healthcare provider and the ability to track changes in patients' health outcomes through storing and accessing previous reports,” she says.

Environmental risks carry a significant impact on human health, either through direct exposure to harmful agents or indirectly by altering life-sustaining ecosystems. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 13 million fatalities are caused by avoidable environmental factors each year. The research also estimates that environmental factors account for 24 per cent of the global illness burden (healthy life years lost) and 23 per cent of all fatalities (premature mortality), with the environmental burden of diseases being 15 times greater in poor nations than in industrialised ones due to variations in exposure to environmental dangers and access to health care.

There has been a large global increase in allergy incidence in recent decades, which has been linked mostly to changes in the environment and lifestyle. Sandstorms transport different types of dust and biological particles across continents. Primary pollutants are directly discharged into the atmosphere, whereas secondary pollutants are produced through chemical interactions with other pollutants in the environment.

Immune systems caught in a storm

Related: Molecular Allergology: The Future of Allergy Diagnostics

Sandstorms help dust-associated biological particles disperse across large distances. In a sandstorm, microbiological organisms survive because many bacteria and fungi can create spores, which help them survive. Bacteria, fungi, and virus-like particles can be found in sandstorm dust. These microorganisms are most likely to survive even during trans-oceanic travel in a dust event, and the bacteria can cause illness even after being carried thousands of kilometres. Microbes, pollen, and dust particles finally fall to the earth after varying durations and distances travelled.

The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is one of the world's dustiest regions because of its proximity to the Sahara Desert. While natural sources such as the Sahara are the primary causes of dust storms in the Middle East and North Africa, land-use changes and human-induced climate change have contributed to anthropogenic sources as well. Sand and dust storms can be caused by both natural and manmade factors, such as wind speed and land management.

Related: It's time for green health

Dust pollution causes a wide range of health consequences, including the development and aggravation of asthma, bronchitis, respiratory disorders, infections, and lung cancer. The dust has a detrimental effect on the environment, agriculture, transportation, and infrastructure, in addition to being harmful to one's health. Dust-related welfare losses are estimated to be worth US$3.6 trillion globally, with expenses in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) totalling over US$150 and accounting for over 2.5 per cent of GDP on average.

Key measures for prevention

Governments all around the world are developing strategies to reduce the impact of sand and dust storms at both the national and regional levels, in addition to investing in early warning systems.

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has established a sand and dust storm warning system that will use a global network of research organisations to provide trustworthy dust storm forecasts. Through an international partnership of research and operational organisations, it aims to make it easier for countries to give users quick and accurate information about sand and dust storms.

Dr. Julio Gomez-Seco, is the Lead Consultant Pulmonologist and Sleep Respiratory Disorders specialist at Fakeeh University Hospital, in light of the recent Air Quality index and climate changes in Dubai, residents struggled with respiratory issues. “Huge storms that hit Dubai recently even blanketed the Burj Khalifa beneath them. The suspended dust particles have started to range from the normal range of 50-70 parts per million (ppm) to 300-500 ppm or even 900 ppm in worse conditions. With visibility limited to just a few metres, it is time to take precautionary measures to stay protected from the sandstorms,” he explained.

How to safeguard one’s health

“Sandstorms or dust storms are a cause of concern for citizens’ health in and around Dubai. In the aftermath of the storms, the Air Quality Index soars into the ‘hazardous’ stretch. There is a serious threat to people suffering from respiratory problems like dust allergies and breathing issues like asthma. It can also worsen the health of people with chronic conditions like obstructive pulmonary diseases. Deposit of sand in the lungs causes Silicosis, which may cause lung fibrosis and scarring. Other aftereffects are irritation of eyes — itching, burning, conjunctivitis, throat irritation, nose blockage due to excess mucus caused by bacteria, virus, and fungal spores in the suspended sand particles in the air. Skin irritation and infection/inflammation. This can be particularly harmful to cardiac patients or vulnerable populations for cardiovascular diseases,” he said.

The lead Pulmonologist advises staying indoors as much as possible, especially for those who fall into vulnerable groups. “Infants, school children, senior citizens, people with pre-existing conditions like asthma or upper respiratory tract problems and those who have co-morbidities are at risk. It is advisable to remain in air-conditioned spaces; clean your AC vents regularly, stay hydrated and if stepping out, wear a N-95 mask and cover your eyes, nose and ears. Check the weather forecast before venturing outdoors. Consult a pulmonologist for additional precautions, especially if you are co-morbid or have pre-existing respiratory issues. Visit a doctor immediately if any of your symptoms persist or if your pre-existing condition worsens. It is always better to be safe than sorry.”