Two Philly Hospitals Have New Partner: Abu Dhabi
(Photo: ME NewsWire)
Two Philadelphia hospitals recently announced partnerships with an Abu Dhabi health care provider. Although both partnerships are preliminary and little detail has been offered — it opens the door for increased collaboration between Philly and the growing health care market in the United Arab Emirates.
On Monday, the University of Pennsylvania Health System entered into a strategic partnership with VPS Healthcare, which has more than 7,500 employees, 650 physicians and serves 2 million patients per year, according to the company.
The partnership will “explore the development of collaborative initiatives in establishing and enhancing best-in-class educational conferences, standards in patient care, continuing medical education for physicians, nurses and other allied health professionals,” a press release said.
“This partnership could not have come at a better time,” said Dr. Shamsheer Vayalil, managing director of VPS Healthcare. “UAE’s healthcare sector is the fastest-growing in the entire Middle East with the government spending also witnessing an increase in recent times.”
Meanwhile, the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia signed a memorandum of understanding with VPS in mid-October. That means the two sides “established a process to continue their discussions related to opportunities for providing a continuum of pediatric care for international patients treated at CHOP and establishing new standards of pediatric care at VPS hospitals and clinics.”
A VPS statement said the agreement comes “at a time when [the] UAE is in drastic need of a rationalized approach to pediatric sub specialties.”
“We cannot give much details at the moment but I can certainly tell you that the [memorandum of understanding] broadly aims at setting up specialized pediatric / maternity hospital in Abu Dhabi, which will include preliminary consultation, visibility studies and expertise from key experts in pediatric sub specialties,” said Vayalil.
CHOP and Penn Medicine get access to a huge health care market. VPS gets to share knowledge and learn medical standards to implement at its hospitals. Maybe more. We’ll keep an eye on this as it plays out.
