We Are BRG Healthcare

We weave together our services with data, and technology, and our client’s resident expertise in these key areas.

Quality And Clinical Excellence

Our clinical and quality experts partner with our client’s team to illuminate trends, opportunities, and outcome potential. Using internal and external benchmarking, we help highlight and guide improvement efforts that transform patient outcomes, public quality report card performance, and pay-for-performance programs. Our dynamic platform also allows for risk and disparity stratification of quality measures.

VALUE-BASED CARE AND REIMBURSEMENT

We partner with our clients to design value-based care programs, including measure construct, risk adjustment, and payment methodologies, as well as implementation of systems, service-line agreements, and narrow networks to drive coordination of care. We use dynamic analytics to highlight blind spots and areas of opportunity in their population and prioritize value opportunities.

Kristen Geissler Managing Director kgeissler@thinkbrg.com

Julie Coope Senior Managing Consultant jcoope@thinkbrg.com

Data-driven

Our most powerful outcomes occur because we use our proprietary digital platform to combine data, people, and process. Symphony, a BRG product, allows us to provide quick insights, recommendations, and action plans directly tied to your data inside of our solutions. A targeted team of experts dive deeper into the data to provide insightful understanding, context, and prioritized action plans directly integrated with your data and our analytics tools. This provides real value more quickly than large teams of junior consulting staff who create ad hoc analysis and static PowerPoints.

Symphony unlocks your best thinking with our features, designed to make data-driven decision-making faster and easier:

Analytics Catalog

Symphony provides a single, curated place for all analytics. And, you can connect all of your Tableau, Qlik and Power BI tools to create a richer analytics and storytelling experience beyond BRG’s solutions.

And

Data Bookmarking

Our experts-- or your clinicians and/ or analysts-- add their narrative to instantly saved “slices” of data directly in Symphony. No time is wasted on static screenshots or slides. Bookmarks can be shared to individuals or groups to provide a unique reporting “view.”

In-Data Collaboration

Combined data and insights create the power and influence required to change. Data collaboration has immense value, with a range of use cases including analytics feedback, Q&A on quality control issues, and data-driven decision-making processes.

Use Case Spotlight

Using Symphony for digital delivery and collaboration led a client to 2,047 bed-day savings and 9.2M AED cost reduction in a single pathway.

Outcomes:

- Improved efficiency, productivity, and quality of care

- Increased clinician engagement

- Enhanced patient experience

Data Storytelling

Data needs a good narrative and vice versa. Symphony combines both to tell your story to the world without extra presentations, emails, and meetings. Data and decisions move quickly, so the way that you share perspective and buyin should be equally fit for purpose.

Revolutionising healthcare

Robotic Surgery in the Middle East is coming of age says Mansoor Ahmed, Executive Director – Middle East & Africa (MEA) Region at Colliers

The Middle East healthcare sector is going through a rapid expansion and transformation. Increases in population, income levels, life expectancy, along with lifestyle-related and non communicable diseases (NCDs) have caused Middle East countries to be ranked among the top 20 countries in world for the highest level of obesity, hypertension and diabetics. Facing these challenges, regulators, providers, payers and patients, both in the public and private sector, are focusing on to improve the overall provision of the healthcare o ering the region.

Many regional governments have initiated and implemented positive reforms which are pivotal to improve the overall quality of healthcare services in the region and have resulted in increased private sector participation. These reforms include PPP initiatives, mandatory health insurance and other initiatives to bridge the demandsupply gap.

Of late, especially a er the pandemic, a lot of emphasis is being placed on bringing in and implementing new technologies. There is also increased focus on specialised care models, such as genome sequencing, stem cell therapies and clinical trials with focus on virtual health, artificial intelligence (AI), wearables, blockchain and precision medicine.

Beside these and many other initiatives, robotic surgery in the region is coming of age with many healthcare providers both public and private beginning to o er robotic surgery as an option to patients. The benefits of robotic surgeries include better visuals compared to traditional techniques by providing highly magnified and resolution vision of the operating field, resulting in physicians enhanced precision, higher flexibility and range of motion and dexterity, and more control during the procedures.

History of robotic surgeries

For centuries, surgeons have operated using large incisions to gain a full view of the organ they need to operate on the patient. Recovery time for such taxing procedures is extensive and post-operative complications are a common occurrence.

The introduction of Minimally Invasive Surgery (MIS), also known as keyhole surgery or laparoscopy, has drastically improved patient outcomes. Using smaller incisions, the risk of infection can be reduced and recovery can be accelerated. Many studies have shown that MIS results in decreased post-operative hospital stays, quicker return to work, decreased pain and better immune function.

However, there are several drawbacks to MIS due to the technical and mechanical nature of the equipment. These limitations make MIS procedures more challenging, reduce their e iciency and increase operating time.

Computer-assisted surgery was developed to overcome the limitations of MIS and to expand its benefits. Classified as a type of MIS, it involves the use of robotic systems to execute surgical procedures. Although robotic surgery has technically been around for more than 30 years – the first documented robotic surgery was performed in 1985 - it has not been widely implemented in medical settings. However, in last 10 years or so, the robotic surgery market has expanded rapidly due to advancement in technology and increased acceptability across the globe. Based on various estimates, the global surgical robotic market was valued at between $7 billion to $8 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach $18 billion to US$ 20 billion by 2030.

Robotic surgery in the Middle East

Presently, around one million robotic surgeries have been performed worldwide with 75 per cent of the procedures performed in the USA. Robotic surgery was first introduced in the Middle East in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2003, followed by Qatar in 2010, and Kuwait and UAE in 2014.

There are close to 50 Da Vinci surgical systems installed in the region. Saudi Arabia has the highest number of installations with 19 Da Vinci surgical systems and 930 documented robotassisted procedures performed between 2004-2010. The Middle East witnessed an increase in robot-assisted surgeries by 60 per cent between 2011-2017.

In the UAE, the Ministry of Health and Prevention (MoHAP) is a pioneer in adopting and encouraging robotic surgery. In 2014, MOHAP announced the launch of the first robot for catheterisation and cardiac surgery through computerised systems in Al Qasimi hospital, Sharjah. Rashid Hospital in Dubai under the governance of Dubai Health Authority (DHA) also adopted robots in cardiac surgeries.

With the successful use of robots in heart surgery, MOHAP initiated the Gynaecology and Obstetrics Robotic Surgeries Programme in 2019. During that year, MOHAP performed 126 robotic surgeries in six clinical specialties. The robotic systems are installed across di erent facilities of MOHAP such as Al Qasimi hospital - Sharjah, Kuwait Hospital and Dubai.

Abu Dhabi Health Services Company (SEHA) also adopted robotic surgery in its Sheikh Shakhbout Medical City (SSMC) and performed its first robotic surgery in 2020. Dubai Hospital has launched the Da Vinci Xi Surgical Robot for performing robotic assisted minimally invasive surgeries in 2022.

With robotic surgery becoming the new standard of care globally, the private sector in UAE is catching up with the trend to provide this cutting-edge technology to the UAE population. The focus is on the treatment of gastrointestinal surgeries, thoracic surgeries, gynaecologic surgeries and heart surgeries, with a focus on prostate cancer, digestive diseases, urological procedures, hysterectomy and mitral valve in the UAE.

In Dubai, robotic surgery was introduced in the private sector by American Hospital in 2020. Currently Mediclinic Hospital, Saudi German, Al Zahra and Clemenceau hospitals have robotic surgery platforms to cater to patients across di erent specialties. Cleveland Clinic performed its first robotic surgery in Abu Dhabi in 2015 through its Da Vinci system, while Burjeel Hospital has launched E-GPS Robot for spine surgeries.

Overall benefits of robotic surgery

Robotic surgery in the region is expected to grow exponentially in the coming years, with the UAE and the KSA to take the lead. Robotic surgery has great advantages over traditional and laparoscopic surgical methods by o ering greater precision, reduced bleeding, smaller incisions leading to smaller scars, reduced hospital stay and less chances of hospital acquired infection. With healthcare moving towards value-based care and implementation of mechanisms such as Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs), the cost of complications and longer hospital stays must be absorbed by the hospital and not the insurer. With the advantages o ered by robotic surgery, in terms of better clinical outcome and reduced hospital stay, the hospitals will benefit from reduced patient care costs. Moreover, the growth of robotic surgeries increases ROI as a result of better medical outcomes and increased bed turnover, superior e iciency and lower costs, providing a competitive edge compared to competitors that can attract medical tourists and capture medical tourism outflows from the region.

We organise virtual events that bring the world of healthcare to your office or take you from your office to healthcare events all around the world.

We organise our own major events like Vision Health 2023 with the Saudi Government and we create networking events in the fringes of major global healthcare gatherings like Arab Health, HIMSS and Africa Health.

Above all we help our customers and friends enter new territories, supporting them with everything from content and marketing through to market scoping, product development and cultural fit.