Dubai embraces national telehealth service

NEWS - eHealthNews.nz editor Rebecca McBeth

A telehealth platform rolled out across Dubai just prior to the Covid-19 pandemic has become a trusted and widely used service that enhances patient care, says Digital Health Week 2024 keynote speaker Khulood Mohammed.

Khulood, a GP consultant in Dubai and a non-resident research fellow at the Mohammed bin Rashid School of Government, worked on the development of a national telehealth platform deployed across Dubai called Doctor for Every Citizen.

She tells eHealthNews.nz the Covid-19 pandemic served as a catalyst for the widespread adoption of telehealth in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). 

‘Doctor for every citizen’ faced initial resistance from both patients and clinicians, who preferred the traditional model of in-person appointments.

“Implementing that platform had a lot of challenges, especially with getting the patients on board because it was implemented just before the pandemic,” Khulood recalls. 

“Physicians were worried about liabilities such as ‘what if they misdiagnosed’? and ‘what if they were not able to come up with a diagnosis without touching the patient’?” 

Khulood says clinicians were given extensive training on how to approach telehealth consultations differently than in-person visits and this helped them gain confidence. The training also included a triage system to identify whether a patient could be treated via telehealth or needed an in-person consultation.

Patient engagement gradually increased, particularly after familiar doctors were integrated into the platform. 

“What helped a lot is when we added physicians that patients already know onto the platform,” says Khulood. 

This was especially helpful for older generations, who were accustomed to seeing the same doctors for years. 

She adds that Covid-19 lockdowns left people with no choice but to use online services and the telehealth platform spread by word of mouth as people discovered how easy and efficient it was to use.

Today, ‘Doctor for every citizen’ has become a trusted and widely used service and Dubai Health Authority has published the telehealth clinical guidelines used to deploy the national platform, to download online.

Khulood explains that Dubai adopts and supports many new technologies and innovations, but there is always a balance between adoption and regulation.

“As long as we are able to ensure that it is a safe approach and it would increase patients’ value, then it is something that is very much welcome in the UAE,” she tells eHealthNews.

Hear more from Khulood Mohammed as a keynote speaker at Digital Health Week NZ this December 2-5 in Hamilton. Register today.

Picture: Dr Khulood Mohammed

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