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Dubai Blood Donation Center retains AABB
Dubai Blood Donation Center retains AABB accreditation, achieves 100% compliance
Dr. Hussain Al Samt
The Dubai Health Authority’s Dubai Blood Donation Centre (DBDC) was re-accredited by the American Association of Blood Banks (AABB) after adhering to 100 percent compliance.
The center first received its AABB accreditation in 2012 making it the first center in the UAE and one of the few centers in the Middle East region to achieve this accreditation. Since then the center has maintained its accreditation status and has been re-accredited every two years.
In cooperation with the Ajman Medical Zone and Tamouh Health Care, Ajman University launched a coronavirus vaccination center that also offers PCR and DPI testing services. The center’s launch is part of an academic partnership between Ajman University and Tamouh Healthcare. It is located in the Sheikh Zayed Exhibitions and Conferences Hall and provides free services to all citizens and the university’s students and staff.
The center also operates throughout the week 12 hours a day except on Fridays and has separate rooms for men and women and the appropriate equipment required by medical staff for coronavirus tests and vaccinations. People wishing to undergo coronavirus tests or receive the vaccine are required to adhere to relevant precautionary measures, including wearing face masks and ensure social distancing. They must also present their Emirati ID.
Dr. Hussain Al Samt, Director of Pathology and Genetics Department at the DHA, said, "We are incredibly proud of our team at the DBDC who have maintained the highest level of quality with regard to all aspects of blood collection, processing, testing, storage and distribution. This accreditation highlights the high-level of standards that are followed at the center. International accreditations are important to benchmark ourselves and play an important role in the delivery of safe and high-quality services."
The AABB accreditation evaluates all aspects of the blood transfusion chain right from the vein of the donor to the vein of the patient.
Al Samt highlighted the fact that the blood donation center is the main blood donation center in Dubai that collects 50 percent of the total blood collected in the country. In 2020, more than 66,000 donors visited the center and 49,500 units of blood were collected. It supplies blood and blood products to all the DHA hospitals as well as 40 private hospitals in Dubai. The DBDC organized 658 mobile blood donation campaigns in 2020. An independent study conducted in 2020 highlighted that customer happiness and trust for the DBDC was 97 percent. Regular blood donation takes 15 minutes, while platelet collection takes 45 minutes to one hour. Thalassemia patients require regular blood transfusions every few weeks.
Platelet collections are also vital and needed by cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy. Since platelets are blood cells critical to stopping bleeding, these are used in life-threatening bleeding situations- post-surgery or after accidents. The center is located on the premises of Latifa Hospital and carries out mobile blood donation drives across the community in Dubai.
GE Healthcare & Curea sign first strategic collaboration in Turkey to accelerate AI-based software development in medical imaging
GE Healthcare and Prof. Hakki Muammer Karakas, M.D., Istanbul Provincial Health Directorate Radiology Services Coordinator & Health Sciences University Faculty Member, have announced the country’s first strategic collaboration to accelerate artificial intelligence (AI) development in medical imaging.
Prof. Dr. Karakas will lead the research and development teams comprised of distinguished clinicians, radiologists, scientists from different disciplines, senior data scientists and software developers who have come together under the newly established company CUREA, at TECHNOPOL Istanbul. Using GE Healthcare’s Edison Health Services, the teams will work to develop AI-based applications focused on the detection, categorization and severity grading of COVID-19 to diagnose and treat patients; as well as develop AI-based applications for automatic detection and classification of breast lesions through contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (CESM). Advances in medical imaging constantly increase our knowledge of diseases and their treatments, creating a surge in the amount of data generated. For each patient to benefit from the promises of personalized medicine, new AI-based tools are needed to aggregate, standardize, and make sense of this data quickly.
However, the development of AI applications in medical imaging requires access to large amounts of high-quality annotated data, advanced design visualization capabilities and the ability to trace the development and learnings – which can be a challenge. The collaboration between CUREA and GE Healthcare will leverage large-scale clinical and radiological data from the University of Health Sciences and using the AI-know how and capabilities of the research and development teams led by Prof. Dr. Karakas, work to accelerate the development of AI solutions and help structure an AI healthcare ecosystem in Turkey.
Commenting on the collaboration, Prof. Karakas said: “Leveraging the power of GE Healthcare’s Edison Health Services, Turkish clinical scientists, data scientists and software developers will be able to harness our immense datasets to create AI-driven applications that can add significant value to the diagnosis and treatment of diseases in the Turkey. This is an organic tie-up that has the potential not only to establish Istanbul as a global site for AI development in healthcare, but the ability to scale up intelligent clinical analysis and operational management solutions and make them available to radiologists and healthcare professionals around the world.”
Nael Dabbagh, General Manager of GE Healthcare in the Middle East, North Africa, Central Asia and Turkey, said: “This is an exciting collaboration that will gradually give Turkish start-ups, researchers and radiologists the opportunity to create AI applications in medical imaging that can dramatically enhance treatment and diagnosis of disease in Turkey and beyond. It is also a significant step forward in establishing an ecosystem for AI development in healthcare for Turkey and the whole region, thanks to the leadership and vision of Prof. Dr. Karakas and his team.”
Previous AI collaborations announced in Europe have focused on the management of liver cancer with artificial intelligence characterization tools, the diagnosis and prognosis of lung diseases, and the accuracy and personalization of treatments for brain cancer or patient follow-up through imaging tools and multidisciplinary consultation meetings. Similarly, the recently launched EMEA Edison™ Accelerator is a start-up acceleration & healthcare provider collaboration program in Europe, Middle East & Africa, for the region and the world. It brings together healthcare providers interested in being at the forefront of innovation, and start-ups who want to leverage the GE Healthcare environment and mentoring to enhance their value proposition.
GE HEALTHCARE AND THE UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCIENCES HEALTH TECHNOPOLIS (TECHNOPOL ISTANBUL) BASED CUREA COLLABORATE TO ACCELERATE AI-BASED HEALTH SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT IN TURKEY.
