• The Surgical Process Institute (“SPI”) platform is rolled out for the first time in the UAE at Danat Al Emarat, a Mubadala Health partner specialising in women and children’s health.
  • The platform is part of Johnson & Johnson MedTech’s digital ecosystem designed to empower surgeons and hospitals to leverage real-time surgical procedure data aiming for the delivery of consistent quality of care and efficiency in their operating rooms.
  • The initial rollout also represents the first SPI implementation for bariatric surgery in the Middle East.

Dubai, UAE: Johnson & Johnson MedTech Middle East (J&J MedTech ME) announced the implementation of its Surgical Process Institute (“SPI”) platform, the first of its kind in the UAE, at Danat Al Emarat, a Mubadala Health partner specialising in women and children’s health in Abu Dhabi.

This new partnership between J&J MedTech ME and Danat Al Emarat aims to see patients benefit from more standardized procedures that reduce surgical variability* and may provide for a reduced risk of preventable adverse events. The combination of advanced software and world-class surgeons has the aim to alleviate common challenges faced by healthcare professionals in the hospital operating room (OR). The SPI digital platform is designed to empower surgical teams to design, apply, and analyse surgical workflows to reduce variability in surgery time, improve procedural efficiency, and enhance team education approaches.

The launch of the SPI platform at Danat Al Emarat, a Center of Excellence for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery accredited by the Surgical Review Corporation (SRC), is a key component of the hospital’s digital advancement approach aiming to leverage healthcare data analytics to support the continuous improvement of patient care outcomes. With the SPI implementation, the surgical teams want to leverage the platform’s workflows, real-time insights, and learnings to achieve high standards of clinical excellence and education.

Marzena Kulis, Managing Director of J&J MedTech ME said: “As expectations in healthcare rapidly evolve, J&J MedTech ME is leading the change by leveraging purposeful technology that may empower our healthcare partners to strive for better patient outcomes. The real-time data provided unlocks plenty of opportunities for healthcare providers looking to effectively harness future digital health technologies, for which solid healthcare data analytics are a prerequisite. The launch of the first SPI platform in the UAE marks a significant milestone in the advancement of surgical intelligence to transform the surgical journey and establish optimal standards with the goal to give patients access to consistent and high-quality care.”

Loai Abu Elhawa, General Manager, Gulf at J&J MedTech ME said: “The implementation of the SPI platform at Danat Al Emarat demonstrates how meaningful collaboration between healthcare institutions and industry partners can achieve unprecedented progress in the digitalisation of patient care. Through the exceptional change management driven by the J&J SPI and Danat Al Emarat teams across multiple hospital functions, the SPI implementation at Danat Al Emarat was completed in just six weeks, representing a 50% reduction in implementation timeline.[1]

Dr. Hazem Al Momani, Head of Surgery, Danat Al Emarat Hospital for Women & Children said:

“Our surgeons at Danat Al Emarat Hospital for Women and Children anticipate strong positive effects on the quality of our surgical process.  The initial feeling since we introduced the SPI tools earlier this year is that our teams are better able to manage potential variables in the OR that impact consistency and efficiency.  We believe this will allow us to deliver a higher overall quality of care while making more effective use of OR time.”

As part of the initial phase, J&J MedTech ME has implemented the SPI platform for bariatric surgeries at Danat Al Emarat hospital. The team is discussing further implementations across different surgical specialties, including general surgery, urology, and orthopaedics, with plans for wider implementation across hospitals in the UAE and the wider ME region.

The SPI platform is designed to support hospitals in creating a continuous cycle of quality improvements and enhance OR team performance. Customer data analysis[2] shows that the SPI platform can lead up to 50% reduction in surgery time variability for colorectal surgery, improved efficiency through up to a 28% reduction in median surgery time for Roux-en-Y gastric bypass procedures, and an acceleration of learning curve for junior surgeons performing ileostomy reversal surgeries.   

[1] EMEA SPI Pitch Deck - Typical Implementation Scenario in EU Markets: 12 weeks

[2] SPI’s customer data analysis, since implementation of SPI and up to May 2020, SPI Insights module 

* As measured by a decrease in the standard deviation of the average procedure time