• Radiology imaging departments at select Dubai Health Authority Medical Fitness Centres to validate the use of AI technology for Chest X-rays.

  • Dubai Health Authority will collaborate with Agfa HealthCare to validate artificial intelligence for fast image analysis, automated reports and improved clinical efficiency.

  • Agfa HealthCare’s organically developed - in collaboration with VRVis in Austria - Chest XRay AI Algorithm* will be validated by Dubai Health Authority.

  • The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will support the Dubai Health Authority’s goal of incorporating the latest technological advancements in the medical field for improved efficiency and enhanced patient-centric care

Mortsel, Belgium/Dubai, UAE : The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) and Agfa HealthCare signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) today at the Arab Health Conference 2018. The collaboration will lead to the first Augmented Intelligence (AI) validation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This government-industry MoU will enable the key benefits of Artificial Intelligence, and will support the Dubai Health Authority’s goal of incorporating the latest technological advancements in the medical field for improved efficiencies and enhanced patient-centric care.

The MoU was signed by His Excellency Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority and James Jay, President Imaging IT at Agfa HealthCare in the presence of H.E. Ambassador Dominique Mineur, Ambassador of the Kingdom of Belgium to the United Arab Emirates and senior officials from both sides.

The MoU is a culmination of the joint efforts of the DHA and Agfa HealthCare for over a period of two years during which the use of AI was reviewed across the radiology departments of DHA’s medical fitness centres.

As part of the MoU, Agfa HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging platform, currently deployed at the radiology departments of DHA’s medical fitness centres, will be leveraged to validate artificial intelligence for fast image analysis, automated reports and improved clinical efficiency.

Vice President, Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum launched the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence, which aims to speed up government’s performance, and enable a creative environment with high productivity. The strategy is part of the UAE Centennial 2071 objectives and is one-of-its-kind in the entire world to enhance government performance and create an innovative and highly productive environment by means of investing in AI, and its applications across multiple domains.

His Excellency Humaid Al Qutami, Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority, said: “In line with the vision of our leaders and in line with the Dubai Health Strategy 2016 -2021, we are keen to foster the use of technology in the health sector to improve efficiencies, enhance healthcare management and overall workflows and most importantly to further improve patient-centric care. Utilization of AI in the health sector is also in line with the UAE Strategy for Artificial Intelligence. The DHA decided to use AI for x-ray imaging across medical fitness centres because of the scale of the service and the fact that it will greatly enhance work efficiencies and will lead to optimum utilization of manpower. The move will have a significant positive impact on the overall medical fitness system.”

The total number of people who visited the DHA run medical fitness centres during 2017 for new and renewal visas were 2,126,066. A medical fitness test is a mandatory requirement for all expats in the UAE. It is required for a residency, employment or education visa.

DHA has 19 medical fitness centres across the emirate for issuance and renewal of visas. DHA will implement this technology across a few medical fitness centres. Then the DHA will access the feasibility of expanding this technology across all its medical fitness centres.

Dr. Mohammed Al Redha, Director of the Department of Organisational Transformation at DHA, said: "At the DHA, we are keen to utilize technology after comprehensive evaluation and looking into how the technology fits into the nuances of the health sector in Dubai. We will be utilizing AI technology in the health sector since it has a strong potential to redesign healthcare completely – and for the better. As part of the collaboration, we will will work together to establish an enterprise imaging strategy for the DHA to enable multi-speciality medical imaging consolidation. We will establish a framework of Artificial Intelligence workflow to augment radiology imaging, including in the area of detecting diseases and we will collaborate to validate machine-learning algorithms in development.”

Maisa Al Bustani, Director of Medical Fitness at the DHA, said: “The move will benefit a vast number of individuals on a day-to-day basis and revolutionalize the way in which radiology imaging is done. With the implementation of this technology, we will be able to greatly enhance efficiencies and workflow management as doctors will now be able to accommodate more reports. The technology will generate automated reports that the doctor will confirm. This will make screening and evaluation more efficient; it will significantly reduce the time taken to receive reports and thus will speed up the overall process. The technology will enhance the overall medical fitness system.”

James Jay, President Imaging IT at Agfa HealthCare elaborates, “We value our relationship with Dubai Health Authority and support the vision the Government of Dubai has set for the use of AI in healthcare. Our two organizations will be at the forefront in validating the value-based clinical application of Artificial Intelligence at Dubai Health Authority. We will contribute to this MoU as a leading provider of e-health platforms for Enterprise Imaging and Analytics and the clinical expertise of our people, an integral part of our company’s DNA.” He continues: “Healthcare systems are under enormous pressure to improve productivity; together we will be diving into specific use cases to turn the power of medical imaging data and validate specific workflow improvements in productivity by leveraging Artificial Intelligence. Dubai Health Authority is already building a data lake of imaging records with Agfa

HealthCare’s Enterprise Imaging Solution, making it available for multi-disciplinary reviews, potential research, teaching, and leverage these imaging data sets to validate the use of our Chest XRay AI Algorithm as part of the scope of this MoU.”

Dr. Anjum M. Ahmed, Global Director Imaging Information Systems at Agfa HealthCare reiterates, “Dubai Health Authority is demonstrating leadership and vision on the road towards its strategic goals for 2016-2021. We are excited about this opportunity, as this is the first AI validation project in the region, and this will help set a model for others to follow, and explore the use of AI applications to enable fast detection of chronic and critical diseases, help improve clinical productivity and enable care providers to better serve their communities. Together with Dubai Health Authority, we are validating the use of AI at Medical Fitness Chest XRay screening centres in Dubai.”

Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning are fueling innovations in healthcare to address the pressing clinical needs of care providers. Growing populations, chronic disease prevalence, co-morbidities and spiraling healthcare costs have generated the demand for augmented intelligence leveraging the power of AI and Machine Learning Algorithms, to help improve clinical decision-making, clinician productivity and care.

Visit Dubai Health Authority and Agfa HealthCare at Arab Health 2018

At Arab Health 2018, Dubai Health Authority and Agfa HealthCare will be jointly highlighting this vision of their collaboration on AI and the value of augmented intelligence through workflow optimization by leveraging AI and Machine Learning.  For more information, visit Dubai Health Authority booth CC130 at the Concourse Area and/or Agfa HealthCare Booth, Sheikh Saeed Hall 1, Booth #S1.C20

Download the Agfa HealthCare’s white paper on AI, ‘Augmented Intelligence in Health Imaging - The Next Frontier’ https://global.agfahealthcare.com/int/ai/

*Works in progress

-Ends-

For further information, please contact:
Mahmoud Al Ali 
Head of Media
Dubai Health Authority 
myalali@dha.gov.ae
+9714 219 7260

Kamakshi Gupta
Communications Analyst- Media Dept.
Dubai Health Authority 
Klgupta@dha.gov.ae
+9714 2197455

About the Dubai Health Authority: 
The Dubai Health Authority (DHA) was created, in June 2007, by Law 13 issued by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, Ruler of Dubai, with an expanded vision to include strategic oversight for the complete health sector in Dubai and enhance private sector engagement. His Highness Sheikh Hamdan Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Deputy Ruler of Dubai and UAE Minister of Finance is the President of the Dubai Health Authority and His Excellency Humaid Al Qutami is the Chairman of the Board and Director-General of the Dubai Health Authority.

The DHA’s aim in Dubai is to provide an accessible, effective and integrated healthcare system, protect public health and improve the quality of life within the Emirate. This is a direct translation of the objectives of the Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 launched by His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Keeping the strategic plan in mind, the DHA’s mission is to ensure access to health services, maintain and improve the quality of these services, improve the health status of nationals, residents and visitors and oversee a dynamic, efficient and innovative health sector.

In addition to overseeing the health sector for the Emirate of Dubai, the DHA also focuses on providing services through DHA healthcare facilities including hospitals (Latifa, Dubai, Rashid and Hatta), specialty centres (e.g. the Dubai Diabetes Center) and DHA primary health centres spread throughout the Emirate of Dubai.

The main pillars of service delivery at DHA health facilities are quality, efficiency, patients and staff.  It is our aim to maintain and improve the quality and efficiency of DHA health services. An important aspect of the service delivery strategy is to focus on patients, their needs and satisfaction as well as attract, retain, nurture and support outstanding staff.

Prior to the establishment of the DHA, the Department of Health and Medical Services (DOHMS), which was established in 1973, was the functioning authority that almost exclusively focused on health service delivery.

About Agfa HealthCare

For further healthcare, please contact:
Agfa Press Office Septestraat 27 B – 2640 Mortsel Belgium

Marc De Fré Global Marcom Director Agfa HealthCare T +32 (0)3 444 73 19 marc.defre@agfa.com  

Johan Jacobs Corporate Press Relations Manager Agfa-Gevaert NV T +32 (0)3 444 80 15 johan.jacobs@agfa.com

Agfa HealthCare, present in one hospital out of two, is a leading provider of eHealth & Digital Imaging solutions. Care organizations in over 100 countries rely on Agfa HealthCare to optimize their efficiency and improve patient care.

For more information on Agfa HealthCare, please visit www.agfahealthcare.com  or the Agfa HealthCare Blog

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