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Business News | Dubai | December
7, 2006
Global congress witnesses strategic alliances
between private and public sector
By Debasree
S., Contributing Editor
(ArabMedicare.com) The second and the final day of the Global
Health Care Expansion Congress 2006 at the J.W. Marriott in Dubai
(December 5) witnessed a new synergy between the private and the public
sector as significant members of the medical fraternity sought to strike
strategic alliances that would help reduce the gap between healthcare
providers and consumers in the region.
The focus remained on the creation of 'wellness centers', debunking
earlier notions of treatment centers and the use of electronic medical
records (EMR) that would result in better informed doctors, nurses and
pharmacists, eliminating the possibilities of medical errors.
Discussions also centered on the building of 'futuristic' hospitals that
provide 'evidence at the bedside' and the setting up
'electronically-linked medical communities.'
Most significantly, the business partnership meetings provided
international players to interact with the local policy-makers to
understand the needs specific to the Middle East market, and design
their products and tools accordingly. Overall the platform offered by
Naseba, the event organizers, proved to be a fruitful one since new
alliances were forged and challenges were understood by the large number
of delegates who gathered in Dubai for the Global Health Care Expansion
Congress 2006.
The Congress was a C-level, strategic executive conference that provided
opportunities for buyers in charge of sourcing medical equipment and
solutions to meet with global industry players in a true B2B
environment.
Healthcare is one of the most rapidly growing sectors of the global
economy. Healthcare industry goods and services are different in the way
that their output is often intangible. In fact from a producer's
perspective and more so from the consumer's side, healthcare is an
unpredictable industry with a hard-to-define output. Only by achieving
the equation between marginal benefit and marginal costs of all inputs,
can private and public health budgets be efficiently allocated.
Some of the keynote speakers included Mr. Michael J. Beller, Chief
Medical Officer and Vice President of Cerner West CinC who highlighted
the need to remove 'paper and pen' from medical institutions and usher
in a new concept of online medical communities. "When doctors,
nurses, physicians are all linked by the same system, they know at once
what to do, cutting down on precious time and saving lives," he
said.
Mr. Dana Driver, Vice President, Sales Programs, McKesson Medical
Imaging, highlighted the advances in technology that had been
incorporated into new genre medical equipments by McKesson. He
highlighted the filmless diagnostic review process in radiology that was
responsible for better filmless images, leading to more accurate
diagnosis.
Other speakers included Dr. Ravindar Karanjekar, General Manager,
Wockhardt Hospitals Group, India who in his keynote address highlighted:
"a common network accompanied with common standards in clinical
pathways, care, pricing, training and education will ensure that the
dream of complete global interoperability is realized. The future
challenges in achieving complete global interoperability lie in all
healthcare professionals speaking the same standardized technological
terms."
Dr. Anupam Sibal, Group Medical Director, Apollo Hospitals Group brought
in his fresh perspective regarding healthcare in the developing world
and the challenges that lay ahead. Finally it was the turn of Mr.
Michael Mcgeady, Associate Principal, Jonathan Bailey Associates and Dr.
Abdul Karim Msaddi, Head of Neurosurgery and Spinal Surgery, Medical
Director, Neuro Spinal Hospital, UAE who put forward their views on
advancements in medicare in their respective countries.
The conference was moderated by Mr. Frank Lievens, Board Member and
Treasurer, International Society for Telemedicine & eHealth.
Source: ArabMedicare.com
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Focus
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