Can this app streamline medical care in the MENA?

When ill or recovering from an illness or operation, a patient often finds themselves tied to the hospital where they have received their treatment, in order to keep up to date with the status of their health. If they do change hospitals, or circumstances have forced them to continue their treatment elsewhere, like another country, they then face another problem: ensuring they can gather their medical records sufficiently. An attempt to address this issue can be found with Nabda Care, a medico-social platform that enables connectivity between patients, care providers, and personal medical records.

Nabda Care’s integrated health service model, known as NabdaNet, was founded last year, by seven partners, including Tamkeen Capital co-founder and managing partner Ihab El Fouly. The Egyptian fund has also invested in the service. They started in Egypt and then moved onto Kuwait and the UAE. During this period of expansion they have had participation from Philips, who have been selling Radiology Information Systems produced by Nabda Care. By the end of 2014 Philips will also be in partnership with Nabda Care working with their personal medical records systems, mobile phone apps and selling equipment under the title Original Equipment Manufacturer.

With 14 years in the fields of health and biomedical engineering IT, as well as at one point being the CEO of Zain, El Fouly is passionate about the marriage of health and telecommunication. “What prompted me to invest in this field were reports stating that mobile health was expected to become one of the biggest fields of business,” he says, “as well as estimates that showed that investments would reach billions of dollars within 10 years.”