Digital health and AI empower patients and physicians toward longevity

Artificial intelligence and digital health are playing transformative roles in the way health care is delivered in Abu Dhabi while improving patient care.

And as the UAE capital puts itself front and centre of this digital age revolution, Abu Dhabi Global Health Week has again placed that progress in the spotlight.

On the sidelines of the second health week, Ibrahim Al Jallaf, executive director of digital health at the Department of Health Abu Dhabi, revealed how Abu Dhabi’s embracing of and taking forward the potential impact of AI and digital health was already bringing results.

He defined digital health as the application of digital analytics and AI into the healthcare space and said it should complement and build “on top of the existing system”.

While AI is potentially impacting almost every aspect of human life, Mr Al Jallaf said that within the healthcare segment is where the effects could perhaps be felt most potently.

“AI has been there for quite a few years. However, more recently it’s spiked in terms of prevalence and use, and that’s the real game changer,” he told The National.

“The question that we’re being asked quite a bit is how can AI positively impact healthcare. And the biggest benefit we’re seeing is on enabling the shift from healthcare to health; how do we improve the healthy average life expectancy of the population?”

“Now, with artificial intelligence, we’re starting to see a lot of solutions drive towards that, which is very impactful.”

Mr Al Jallaf explained that everything done in digital health anchors on pillars such as whether it will drive a healthy population and improve healthy average life expectancy, improve accessibility or quality of care, and drive a resilient, innovative healthcare system that can handle future shocks, such as Covid, alongside long-term healthcare system sustainability.

“We look globally for advancements, and over the past few years, AI has become a lot more relevant,” he said.

“So where we find success cases and potential for innovation, we bring them to the UAE, and we grow some of them out of the UAE to then drive a healthier population.”

Some innovations are experienced daily, while the impact of medical advances may be seen in the long term with better life quality and expectancy.

“The advantage of digital products and artificial intelligence, typically, is in scaling,” Mr Al Jallaf said.

“The opportunity to scale to millions, population-wide, and have scaled impact is where digital products and AI really kicks into gear and becomes extremely powerful. Our priority is the population, and the way to benefit the entire population is through these channels.”

He gives the Sahatna app - “our gateway to health” - as an example, as every Abu Dhabi individual has access. During Abu Dhabi Global Health Week, the DoH revealed Sahatna AI.

“It’s a large language model with medical guardrails, fine-tuned for medical responses. It’s all in-country, dealt with at the highest levels of patient privacy…connected to Malaffi, your health information exchange, and you can ask anything.”

A user can, for example, check what medication they have been prescribed and why, simplifying the process of understanding.

“One of the things in Sahatna we’re very passionate about is building out a significant wellness module, with the objective of improving the healthy average life expectancy,” Mr Al Jallaf continued.

“The focus is on the next best action for you as an individual to extend your lifespan. This really becomes your tailored health guide. And we don’t just leave it at the patient level. We want to complement the ecosystem.”

“It’s brilliant that the population is able to see this - giving a bit more control and oversight over their health care is important.”

He explained that Malaffi is connected to all hospitals and clinics, so they all have 360-degree patient health records.

“They can ensure that they take the best care of you…that’s incredible impact in action. Now, your physician and you both have the same 360-degree record, giving the patient more control, but also empowering the physician. This connected ecosystem has enabled us to do so much more.”

This also better optimises the use of time and resources and can give a patient answers about a health issue without necessarily leaving home for a clinic waiting room, thereby improving care accessibility.

“How do you optimise population and patient experience? This is what we’re seeing. And the benefits only increase from here,” said Mr Al Jallaf, expanding on how AI and digital fit in.

“It’s a lot of AI-assisted care. We’ve rolled out numerous AI use cases and digital products to physicians. “

“We have the patient risk profile, over 14 AI risk models. Each covers the probability of an individual getting a condition, such as diabetes or breast cancer, all based on their entire medical health record.

“In the AI models, there is explainability; if the physician clicks on it, they can see the different visits and lab test results this patient went through and they can then incorporate that into their care plans.

“This is live across 100 per cent of hospitals and clinics in Abu Dhabi, with over 70 per cent of physicians as active users. This is impact…and we’re seeing a lot of success cases.”

Some of the consequences of earlier work in the digital space are also being felt. Mr Al Jallaf said it will become more “exponentially evident” but that health officials were already seeing positive changes in population health metrics and quality of care.

“Now the question is, how much further? The Department of Health will always strive to push the bar; the reality is, this is people’s health care…the bar is always higher. There is no ‘good enough’ healthy average life expectancy, no ‘good enough’ quality of care, so we consistently strive to push the bar.”

“The obsession we have is, how do you drive the right impact? This is where we search the world for impact cases, because we’re obsessed with success.

“We want to make sure all the initiatives and projects we do drive an increase in healthy average life expectancy, an increase in best class care, so we have conversations based on what’s been successful and what we could do successfully. Which set of projects can we do to drive the highest impact?”

Hosting an event such as Abu Dhabi Global Health Week enables collaboration and information sharing to take the broader health agenda forward, said Mr Al Jallaf.

“We consider ourselves one of the globally leading governments in health tech. There are other global health leaders that inspire us, and we leverage opportunities such as Abu Dhabi Global Health Week to spark these conversations.

“The fact that we have some great examples of impact puts us on the table to spark even greater conversations, because they see inspirational stories come out of us, and they bring their own inspirational stories.

“So we’re now having conversations that are incredibly impactful because some other global leaders are excited to have a conversation with us, which only sparks further innovation.

“We’re constantly looking for the next best innovation to move the needle on.”

Mr Al Jallaf said that Abu Dhabi Global Health Week also gave exposure to new apps, AI use cases, and concepts that can be related to the UAE.

“The global perspective from leading AI experts is that healthcare is one of the fundamental sectors that will experience a significant amount of benefit from AI,” he added.

“The level of conversation and the excitement I hear from different leaders in healthcare is very strong. When you tell a leading health expert that they can improve the lives of a million people, the inspiration and the excitement are unlimited.”

This page was produced by The National in partnership with Abu Dhabi Global Health Week.