Dubai Health Authority and Joslin Diabetes Centre discuss unified diabetes protocol system for Dubai

A high-level delegation from the Dubai Health Authority headed by His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid, Director General of the DHA met with Dr Kenneth Quickel, President and CEO of the JDC in Boston and the higher management of JDC to discuss ways to widen the scope of work that the two organisations have jointly undertaken.

Presently, the affiliation with the Harvard Affiliated - Joslin Diabetes Centre (JDC), has ensured that over the last five months, since the JDC has opened its doors in Dubai, over 1000 diabetes and pre-diabetics have received top-of-the-line multidisciplinary treatment to tackle their condition.

The JDC centre in Dubai has four U.S.-board certified endocrinologists, seven diabetes educators, a podiatrist, a physiotherapist and a mental health counsellor.

Taking this association one step forward, it is the vision of His Excellency Qadhi Saeed Al Murooshid to establish a unified concept and protocol system for treating diabetes across the DHA primary healthcare centres and hospitals.

Al Murooshid said, "The DHA is in the process of identifying methods to establish a strong unified system across primary healthcare centres to treat and manage diabetes. This is vital to increase efficiency and detect diabetes in its early stages, before it causes several health complications, and primary healthcare centres play a crucial role to achieve this level of competency.

"Presently, the DHA is in the process defining a roadmap to ensure that we establish common practises of treating diabetes across all DHA hospitals and clinics. This will ensure standardized protocols are followed, we are also looking at building stronger referral systems, establish a better diabetes database and promote advanced education in diabetes care and management."

His Excellency Al Murooshid highlighted the importance of training doctors at various levels in diabetes management. "Training our primary healthcare doctors in diabetes management is a crucial step for us and the DHA strongly emphasises on more training initiatives. We also understand the need to reach out to our community and are working to set up clinics across different areas of Dubai that provide diabetes treatment."

In order to achieve this, His Excellency said that the DHA is in the process of further strengthening its relationship with the JDC. The DHA is coordinating with the JDC to establish various processes which include community outreach programs and other initiatives to combat this condition, which has a high prevalence in the region.

Presently the Jostin Diabetes Centre in Dubai features state-of-the-art treatment facilities for patients with diabetes and focuses on prevention, education, lifestyle management and podiatry, as well as early detection of complications for patients ages 18 and older.

The high-level delegation from the DHA that was in Boston to facilitate this cooperation with the JDC included Khalid Ahmed Al Sheikh Mubarak, CEO Shared Services Support Dr Essa Kazim, CEO, Health Policy and Strategy Sector, Mr Ali Mohamad Ebrahim Al Ali, IT Director and Mr Tony Batour Elzoghbi, Director of Governance and Internal Audit Department.

The delegation from JDC included Ms. Judith Eyres Goodwin, VP and Managing Director, strategic initiatives, JDC, Michael P Sullivan, Senior VP of development, Dr Antoine Kaldany, Director of International program, JDC.