Dubai hosts major health congress

DUBAI // More than 65,000 health professionals are in the city today for the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress with an eye toward enhancing their own skills and addressing medical challenges facing the region.

The conference agenda consists of 16 seminars that range in topic from common diseases to anaesthesia. This year, the event will include three new topics: chronic respiratory disease, oncology and multiple sclerosis.

Top international and regional neurologists, psychiatrists and physical therapists will discuss and debate the latest in multiple sclerosis research and rehabilitation, an increasingly relevant subject to the region.

The four-day event offers delegates the chance to earn Continuing Medical Education (CME) accreditation on 14 topics, including quality management and cancer therapy. According to organisers, 6,000 delegates are expected to benefit from the most up-to-date information in their respective disciplines.

"Arab Health is by some considerable margin the largest gathering of health and medical professionals in the region," said Simon Page, the divisional director for life sciences, Middle East and Asia, at IIR Middle East, the organisers of the congress.

"The event … features the world's most comprehensive series of medical conferences covering the entire spectrum of healthcare provision, management and legislation."

Another key topic at the congress is quality management, which will look at ways to improve delivery standards and patient safety while reducing costs.

"There are significant gaps in knowledge throughout the Middle East in quality management practices. We want to raise the importance of quality management, using real-life data based on research, to improve quality in health care," said Dr Samer Ellahham, the chairman of the conference and the chief quality officer and senior consultant at Sheikh Khalifa Medical City and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation in Abu Dhabi

Companies from 60 countries will showcase their latest products and services at the congress. "This year we have more than 300 new exhibitors and 30 country pavilions, with Argentina, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and Portugal all being debutants this year," Mr Page said.

newsdesk@thenational.ae