Healthcare | Tuesday 27 January, 2015 7:54 am |

The quality of infant care in the UAE is in line for a significant boost thanks to new medical technologies that will be available to clinicians treating the young patients at Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital in Dubai. GE Healthcare announced details of its equipment, which will comprise more than half of the medical technology at the facility, at Arab Health in Dubai, the largest healthcare exhibition and medical congress in the Middle East.

The Dubai Health Authority is focused on significantly improving care for children, and the Al Jalila Children’s Specialty Hospital, due to open in Dubai this year, is the first specialized children’s hospital in the UAE. The establishment of the 200-bed facility was a gift to UAE’s children by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President and Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, to celebrate his daughter Al Jalila’s first birthday.

The installed healthcare technology caters for several centers of excellence within the hospital, dedicated to care areas including oncology, cardiology, mental health and neurology, which will care for young patients from new-borns through to 16-year olds. The equipment includes the world’s first high-definition CT scanner, the Discovery 750 HD; the Giraffe OmniBed, an incubator with an in-built warmer designed to provide uniform heat to a premature baby; and the VScan, a handheld device based on ultrasound technology, which can be used to easily assess internal fluid flow, and is about the size of a smartphone so that clinicians can carry it in their pockets.

GE Healthcare announced that Al Jalila’s cardiac, radiology and emergency departments will all be equipped with GE’s ultrasound solutions, and, for the first time in the UAE, all technologies will be connected to the Dubai Health Authority network via an IT system called EchoPAC and an imaging storage system called ImageVault. This will allow Jalila hospital clinicians to communicate and collaborate more effectively, by sharing images and reporting on cases between two of the main hospitals in Dubai: Rashid and Dubai Hospital. This is expected to lead to more confident diagnoses and treatment decisions.

“Premature birth and congenital abnormalities are amongst the UAE’s top causes of children’s death and are amongst the most pressing healthcare challenges in the region. The technology installed here will help to tackle these issues by allowing us to make clinical decisions with greater confidence,” says Dr. Moza Ajaif Al Zaabi, CEO of Al Jalila hospital.

Access to CT in UAE
Elsewhere in UAE, GE is providing its latest CT technology to the radiology departments of 11 out of the 15 MoH hospitals in the country. These installations are in line with the MoH strategic plan to modernize and innovate hospitals across the country with state-of-the-art technology and facilities that help address the increasing incidence of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) or ‘lifestyle diseases’ in UAE.

According to estimates, by 2030, almost 80 percent of deaths in the Middle East will result from NCDs, such as cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer1. GE’s Revolution EVO CT* scanner will allow clinicians to perform more exams in less time, while providing high quality images and less dose to the patient. The installation of this advanced equipment at MoH hospitals is aligned to the Ministry’s Strategic Vision 2014-16 to further strengthen the standards of healthcare delivery in the country.


His Excellency Dr. Mohammad Salim Al Olama, Undersecretary of the UAE Ministry of Health, said: “Advancing social development with a focus on healthcare is one of the strategic approaches of the UAE Government. At the Ministry of Health, we are committed to introducing the world’s best and most advanced technologies to our hospitals to raise them to truly international standards. One of the key pillars of our strategic vision is to enhance the preventive health system, which places the highest importance on diagnostic technologies.”

He added: “The introduction of the advanced technologies at our hospitals will contribute to greater efficiency in patient care and also contribute to the better health of the people. By assuring excellent service standards through deploying the latest technologies, we are bringing transformational change to our healthcare system. Through our partnership with GE Healthcare we are drawing on the company’s competencies in advanced medical technologies for our hospitals.”