"Technology is invading every place now; it is a platform where we conduct our activities. Healthcare is one of the fields and we are trying to address the challenges connected to electronic health records, telemedicine, tele-health, decision support, medication, medical errors, patient safety and security," he said.
According to Al-Barrak, the e-Health Program goes hand-in-hand with quality, since it supports health care providers, organizations to document and take knowledge-based decisions, diagnose, treat and help provide accurate solutions to nurses, and physicians. He said e-Health is very important for the safety of patients, and for the accessibility of healthcare records. "In the long term, it is very cost-effective," he said.
According to Al-Barrak, the e-Health Conference is important for GCC countries as they continue to accept workers from several countries. "One of the panelists talks about an on-going scheme being implemented where GCC is connected to a system or health database that monitors sickness of visitors; if one country in the GCC has detected it, then it will be shared automatically with the other GCC countries," he said.
"If you are here today in Kuwait and if you want to work in Saudi, your health record here can be transferred to Saudi," he said. The first e-Health GCC Conference saw presentations from different health care professionals and companies that offer technology solutions. Two of the companies are Kofax and Open Text. In an interview yesterday, Neil Briody, Sales Manager Kofax said they participated in the conference as it gave them an opportunity to understand the challenges that the healthcare organizations within the GCC is facing, particularly Kuwait. He aimed to comprehend how technology can help them address their issues with efficiency, reduce cost and ultimately provide excellent service for patients. Kofax deals with the private and public sectors, providing various products and solutions to health organizations, capturing information regardless of formats and types, streamlining the process and ultimately, managing the information.
"Lots of organizations still rely on paper-based documents for their day-to-day activities. We are an organization that can eliminate the unnecessary paperwork," Briody said. Kofax technology is important as it helps organizations become more efficient and importantly, provide better services to customers.
For over 20 years, Kofax has been a leading provider of document-driven process automation solutions.
Briody admitted that their solution displayed in Kuwait is quite expensive compared to low-cost solutions being offered by competitors. "We are proud of the company since we have the support, and the R&D.
We have several innovative products that we launched, in addition to a range of Kofax products that are now in the market. We have attractive products being used, capitalized and recognized by several companies worldwide.
Kofax can offer solutions that can benefit companies in the long run," he said. The global financial crisis has affected almost all the companies, but according to Briody, Kofax somehow managed to capitalize on the crisis and helped many companies lower their expenses and save money.
"We weathered the crisis, and in fact, it somehow helped us in a way because it generated more trade, especially from emerging markets like the Middle East and Africa," Briody said. He also deemed Kuwait their key market considering it's the 'the future sophisticated market' in the making.
Saji John, Partner Manager, OpenText, Middle East also explained products and services they offer. OpenText offers healthcare records management, enhancing the existing EMR [Electronic Medical Record] systems which were originally created on paper to hardcopy-handwritten notes, prescriptions, faxed test results, emailed referrals and other data.
"What we do is aggregate the content in a single repository so that it can be available in order to provide better healthcare at reduced cost," he said. OpenText focuses on the return of investment as fast as possible and adopts systems to their requirements. Security wise, OpenText according to John 'is absolutely fantastic'. "It is certified by lots of government regulations and the US Department of Defense, for example, has awarded OpenText for having the highest level of security for ECM systems. We comply with about 20 different regulations," John said.
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Ben Garcia
Quelle/Source: Zawya, 08.02.20212
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