OuluHealth and Oulu’s health com­pa­nies at the place where glob­al health­care meets inno­va­tors

Arab Health is recog­nised as the largest health­care exhi­bi­tion and med­ical con­gress in the Mid­dle East. The event held annu­al­ly at the end of Jan­u­ary at the Dubai World Trade Cen­tre, in the Unit­ed Arab Emi­rates, attracts health­care pro­fes­sion­als, med­ical equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­ers, hos­pi­tal rep­re­sen­ta­tives, and health com­pa­nies from around the world. Vis­i­tors can expect to see solu­tions that range from health­care prod­ucts to tech­nolo­gies, con­nect to a plat­form used for shar­ing exper­tise through con­fer­ence ses­sions, and seize new busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties through pre-sched­uled meet­ings.  This year, the event was enjoyed also by the OuluHealth ecosys­tem and Finnish health tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­nies look­ing to expand.

Arab Health – the event that rose from desert sand and became a major cen­ter of future health

Accord­ing to Jorge Fer­nán­dez Gates, Senior Advi­sor at Busi­ness Fin­land, the Gulf mar­ket is one of the most sta­ble regions in the world, which proves pos­i­tive eco­nom­ic growth. Con­tin­u­ous efforts of the gov­ern­ment in Dubai to improve the health of its cit­i­zens and a grow­ing num­ber of pri­vate med­ical facil­i­ties bring busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties worth look­ing into. Busi­ness Fin­land has been active­ly sup­port­ing mar­ket entry activ­i­ties also in this region.

‘The ser­vices Busi­ness Fin­land offers to com­pa­nies include iden­ti­fy­ing and cross-check­ing dis­trib­u­tors, host­ing busi­ness del­e­ga­tion vis­its, facil­i­tat­ing meet­ings with hos­pi­tal and health cen­tre rep­re­sen­ta­tives, con­nect­ing to poten­tial cus­tomers, sup­port­ing mar­ket entry, side vis­its organ­ised as part of trade fairs and oth­er events,’ explained Gates.

The UAE aims to have one of the top ten health­care sys­tems in the world by 2030. To achieve this goal, there are cur­rent­ly a few ongo­ing invest­ment plans to mod­ernise and espe­cial­ly to digi­tise the health sec­tor. These ini­tia­tives bring busi­ness oppor­tu­ni­ties, for exam­ple, to Finnish healthtech com­pa­nies and Arab Health is the place to explore them.

‘There is poten­tial for our com­pa­ny in the mar­kets of coun­tries like UAE, as they fea­ture high demand for tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions used for treat­ing chron­ic patients. In addi­tion, these coun­tries are heav­i­ly invest­ing in health­care.  Arab Health is the event for us to find, for exam­ple, prospects and local part­ners whose prod­uct offer­ings we can com­ple­ment’, said Mika Sip­ilä, CEO, ProW­ell­ness Health Solu­tions.

Arab Health began years ago with just a few exhibitors pre­sent­ing their prod­ucts but evolved quick­ly into a glob­al event that will cel­e­brate its 50th anniver­sary next year. The event is con­sid­ered by many entre­pre­neurs as a spring­board to expan­sion to the Mid­dle East. In addi­tion to the impact on the health indus­try, it fos­ters part­ner­ships and shar­ing of knowl­edge world­wide. By offer­ing to com­pa­nies an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present their prod­ucts, Arab Health dri­ves inno­va­tion and attracts invest­ments. This year, par­tic­i­pants enjoyed a wide selec­tion of sem­i­nars, live­ly debates, and impres­sive infra­struc­ture. There were also a few nov­el con­cepts intro­duced, such as Inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and Smart Hos­pi­tal Zones. One of the main goals remained net­work­ing with par­tic­i­pants inter­est­ed in the mar­kets of the Mid­dle East and those look­ing for infor­ma­tion about the lat­est advance­ments in health tech­nol­o­gy.

The Fin­land Pavil­ion

Most of the vis­i­tors at the Arab Health exhi­bi­tion were look­ing for some­thing unique, the solu­tions that have the poten­tial to rev­o­lu­tionise health care. What attract­ed the great­est deal of atten­tion was the inno­va­tions that improve health not just health­care, help to care for peo­ple not just patients, and focus on pre­ven­tion not just cure.

The Fin­land Pavil­ion locat­ed in hall eight host­ed the OuluHealth ecosys­tem and twelve Finnish inno­va­tors, three of them being from Oulu. A few oth­er com­pa­nies from Fin­land were also present at the stands locat­ed inde­pen­dent­ly in oth­er halls. Deliv­ered by Wulff Entre and coor­di­nat­ed by Busi­ness Fin­land, the Pavil­ion saw steady traf­fic as vis­i­tors gath­ered to inter­act with OuluHealth and health com­pa­nies show­cas­ing their solu­tions. Medanets pre­sent­ed an app for nurs­es, which enables imme­di­ate data mon­i­tor­ing and faster obser­va­tion of any changes in the patient’s con­di­tion, sim­pli­fies nurs­ing rou­tines, sup­ports deci­sion-mak­ing, and releas­es time to care. ProW­ell­ness Health Solu­tions engaged in dis­cus­sions about health IT solu­tions for the pre­ven­tion, care, and man­age­ment of chron­ic dis­eases, includ­ing dia­betes, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­eases, endocrine dis­or­ders, COPD, and oth­er chron­ic res­pi­ra­to­ry dis­eases. Cere­nion show­cased the C‑Trend® EEG analy­sis soft­ware, which pro­vides a new lev­el of ease and con­fi­dence in mon­i­tor­ing the neu­ro­phys­i­o­log­i­cal sta­tus of acute­ly ill patients, includ­ing car­diac arrest sur­vivors. Optomed offered fun­dus imag­ing solu­tions includ­ing a hand­held cam­era.

Oulu-based com­pa­nies attend­ing the event enjoyed a vari­ety of net­work­ing events and took part in a pres­ti­gious busi­ness meet­ing in the Pri­vate Office of Al Mak­toum. Dur­ing the meet­ing, the com­pa­nies had an oppor­tu­ni­ty to present their solu­tions and dis­cuss poten­tial coop­er­a­tion with the office rep­re­sen­ta­tives.

‘At Arab Health we were look­ing for promis­ing con­tacts with dis­trib­u­tors. It was also a good plat­form for us to hold meet­ings with already exist­ing clients. The event was sur­pris­ing­ly suc­cess­ful to us as we gained a lot of new busi­ness leads,’ explained Arto Peu­ra, Sales Man­ag­er at Optomed.