KEF Holdings sparks a conversation about future proofing healthcare at Arab Health 2021

Dubai: KEF Holdings, a privately-owned family company steeped in more than 25 years of innovation, participated in the regions highly acclaimed healthcare conference – Arab Health 2021 by hosting a session to shed light on Future-proofing Healthcare on Thursday, 10 June 2021. The aim of the webinar was to discuss the challenges and opportunities for providing cost effective, patient centric and accessible care. During the webinar, KEF also announced the setting up of the first Quaternary care Heart and Orthopaedics Centre in Dubai, due to open in October 2021.

The cardiac and orthopaedics care Centre of Excellence will have its headquarters at the Canadian Specialty Hospital, Dubai. Aimed at bringing efficient, world-class, and affordable healthcare services, it will cater to patients across five countries – UAE, Oman, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar, looking for cardiac and orthopaedic care.

The healthcare industry has been subject to increasing strain across the value-chain. If the recent chain of events with the Covid-19 pandemic have taught us anything, it is that our healthcare systems need to be equipped to manage a crisis such as the pandemic in a more efficient manner. Right from infrastructure readiness, talent availability to financial stability, the root-cause has always been a fundamentally fragmented healthcare system, with an inability to scale in times of need.  

Across the healthcare value-chain, there have been several opportunities for collaboration which have remained unexplored. At KEF Healthcare, the sole focus is to create a highly functional ecosystem that leverages technology to bring quality care closer to the patient, by seamlessly integrating all levels of care.

Faizal E Kottikollon, Founder & Chairman of KEF Holdings, Meitra Hospital and Faizal & Shabana Foundation, presented the hub-and-spoke model and commented “The journey of KEF Healthcare started in 2011 and what was revealed at the end was to shift the paradigm of care delivery system from reactive to preventative care. The recent pandemic illustrated the increasing strain across the healthcare value chain and in order to make world-class care accessible and affordable to all, we need to strengthen our healthcare system right from infrastructure readiness, talent availability to financial stability.  At present, the patient is outside the care delivery eco-system and with Meitra Hospital in collaboration with MGM Healthcare and Canadian Specialist Hospital, we aim to bring the patient at the centre of the eco-system.”

Hub-and-Spoke Model 

The hub-and-spoke model is designed to access physical and digital consultation or ‘Phygital’, a term coined by Faizal E Kottikollon during the webinar. If a patient in Iraq is in need of a cardiac consultation, the patient will be able to get a real-time digital consultation from a cardiac specialist in Dubai through contacting the local care centre set up by KEF Holding in his or her country. At the centre, the patient will undergo examination of vital parameters via tele-health, digitally, which will be recorded in real-time with the centre in the UAE. The doctor can then prescribe treatment to the patient if it can be handled remotely. In case the doctor advises in-person consultation for the patient, he or she will be flown to Dubai physically rehabilitated at the hub stationed at the Centre of Excellence at the Canadian Specialty Hospital. This kind of facility will be available in all the countries under this hub-and-spoke and home model.

Dr. Ali Faizal, Director of the Board and Advisor and Senior Consultant of the Department of Cardiology, Meitra Hospital, discussed the need to change the way traditional care is delivered to patients globally and combating the geographical constraints faced in enabling access to a wider base of population. The Meitra Care Network creates an ever-expanding healthcare eco-system, bringing patients and doctors, as well as primary, secondary, tertiary and critical care service providers, under one integrated system, connected through hard and soft infrastructure – which will reduce downtime, wastage of resources and avoid unwanted hospital admissions, and result in better utilization of doctors, laboratories, operation theatres, and healthcare facilities, – to offer the best healthcare services at an affordable price. “The idea is to take primary and secondary care to the periphery and provide accessibility to a wider population without burdening the tertiary and critical care providers. The spoke clinic enables patients to receive primary care while being able to connect with the hub for advanced or critical care through a state-of-the-art device assistant equipped to provide real-time patient data to the specialist connected at the hub.” added Dr. Faizal. 

Following this Dr Dileep Raman, Founder and Director at Cloud Physician and member of American Board of Internal Medicine, spoke about acting as force multipliers for the existing clinical bandwidth by leveraging technology for delivering efficient critical care. With the pandemic, the shortcomings of the critical care system were exposed such as workforce scalability, resource availability and lack of trainings and skill, all of which can be addressed by the Tele-ICU model of care which once implemented can help deliver critical care at scale. The model is currently being implemented in partnership with Meitra Care Network which helps address cost, accessibility, scalability and upskilling of resources enabling them to deliver the best patient-care thus raising the foundation of the healthcare network at large.

Dr. K R Balakrishnan, Chairman of Cardiac Sciences, Director of Institute of Heart & Lung Transplant & Mechanical Circulatory Support at MGM Healthcare-Meitra Hospitals, further emphasized on the need for upskilling of critical care resources. “The pandemic has brought forth an opportunity for change and improvement. The lack of investment and training programs have forced our healthcare sector to underutilize life-saving technology. By providing health personnel access to robust training program on life-saving cutting edge technology such as Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO) – a life support machine, we are equipping them to help as many people as possible in times of adversity.”

The webinar outlined the most pressing challenges faced by the healthcare industry at large and the need to enable accelerated infrastructure development, staffing and business model innovation, and technology adoption to promote accessible and equitable care to all.

“We aim to harness the power of technology and create a sustainable model in healthcare by making specialist facilities, advance cardiac and orthopaedic care and rehabilitation accessible to all, so that we reach out to the needy patients in the region. The hub-and-spoke model is already implemented successfully at Meitra Hospital in Kerala, India and can be easily replicated anywhere in the world, wherever needed. Collaboration is the key to providing best in class patient-care right at their home in a cost effective manner. With Dubai as our base, we will be setting up the Cardiovascular and Orthopedic Centre in partnership with Canadian Specialty Hospital and developing the hub-and-spoke model in the MENA region.” said Faizal E Kottikollon as he concluded the webinar.

MORE EXCITING KEF HEALTHCARE INITIATIVES COMING SOON

A host of additional major KEF Healthcare projects are already in the advanced stages of planning and are set to be unveiled in the coming year, including the launch of a state-of-the-art wellness resort, so stay tuned to KEF Holdings across Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn for exciting updates and announcements.

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About KEF Holdings

KEF Holdings is a privately held family-owned diversified business conglomerate, founded by Faizal E. Kottikollon and headquartered in DIFC, Dubai, UAE. A true changemaker, Faizal Kottikollon, a US-educated Indian engineer, started a scrap metal company – Al Ahamadi General Trading Company in the UAE, 25 years ago, in 1995. In 1997, Faizal set up the first ever integrated foundry in the UAE, for industrial valves and steel castings, Emirates Techno Casting (ETC) in 1997. This world-class integrated facility of 100,000 square metres in Hamriyah Free Zone, was named among the world’s top three most technologically advanced foundries.

In 2012, Tyco, a $20 billion American corporation bought the company for $400 million (Dh1.46 billion). Which led to the formation of KEF Investments and later KEF Infra in 2014, which was the world’s largest integrated offsite manufacturing facility. In 2018, KEF Infra merged with Softbank-funded Silicon Valley company, Katerra. Having successfully transformed the oil, gas and infrastructure industries, KEF is now redefining healthcare in India and across the world.

In 2017, KEF Healthcare was born out of the vision to change the face of healthcare, using modern technologies and world-class services to make premium healthcare accessible to each and everyone, which led to the opening of Meitra Hospital. This 400,000 square feet hospital was manufactured in 18–months using KEF Infra’s offsite manufacturing technology, in partnership with one of the best healthcare experience designers in the world, making it the first pre-fab hospital ever in India. Meitra Hospital is now one of the most preferred healthcare partners for patients from all over the world. Over the last few years, they have been developing a network to disrupt the traditional healthcare system to make it more efficient, powered by technology.

© Press Release 2021