MedHealth Cairo 2010 was held this year in Egypt. The city of Nile, Cairo, has the pleasure to host 8th annual congress of AHF (Arab Hospitals Federation) . Telemed Providers also joined the Expo as an exhibitor among tens of other exhibitors, mainly the hospitals.

Telemed Providers was the only exhibitor offering remote medicine services including telemedicine, teleradiology, second-opinion through its Middle East office.  While it was interesting to see how hospitals were marketing themselves, perception of using telemedicine as a tool to promote healthcare services in the Middle East was not capitalized by most of the hospitals.

The number of outside visitors was very low, partially for the fact that AHF didn’t advertise the congress enough in the print media and they relied more on their relationship within each country through chambers, societies and other NGO’s network.  I would say that the it was more sort of “matchmaking” than an expo.

The best part of the exhibition was the continuous seminars, lectures and educational gathering in the adjacent meeting hall, where prominent leaders in healthcare industry from the Arab world shared their experience, presented their research with useful information.

While we (myself, Dr. Waleed and Dr. Magdy) were taking a round to get to know other exhibitors, we all had the same conclusion that telemedicine and its implication was yet not explored to its true extent by most of the healthcare organizations taking part in the expo.  While speaking with Jordanian Private Hospital group, when we presented how telemedicine can help the country residents, the healthcare sector and the entrepreneur equally, the feedback we got was more than enough to second our philosophy that medicine CAN be done without limitation of “boundaries”.

In spite of the advancement in Information Technology, tele-consultation is still not adopted in most of the hospitals.  The maximum effect of “technology” on these hospitals were the use of PACS and digital diagnostic imaging.  With the presence of very competent Arab consultants inside the Arab world, who carry decades of experience from US/Europe, tele-consultation needs to be promoted so that patients in the Middle East can seek consultation from these scientists, instead of traveling and seeing foreign consultants in the US and Europe.

I believe, Telemed Providers delivered a very clear message that technology can play a very important role in patient care and competent resources from the Middle East can be utilized even for obtaining second opinion for critical cases.  Telemed Providers is currently extending second opinion service to Egyptian patients and in few other countries in the Middle East through its affiliates and it expressed its deep desire to involve most of the hospitals in this value chain of telemedicine and teleconsultation.

We hope, the next exhibition takes place with a theme of “remote medicine services, a best practice in patient care”

Editorial Team