November 3, 2008, Dubai, United Arab Emirates Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Center (HMC) and Alphamed Group, the sole distributor of Carl Zeiss Meditec in the United Arab Emirates yesterday (Sunday, November 2, 2008) signed a collaborative agreement under which the center will have one of the newest and most advanced types of LASIK technology worldwide.
Dr. Sulaiman Al Habib, Chairman of Al Habib Medical Group, said: “As a world class Medical Center ranked amongst the top global medical institutions, we are proud to adopt the new generation technology that brings Lasik Surgery to the doorstep of a large segment of people. The system is user-friendly and precise, clinical results are outstanding and the procedure is comfortable. The new system incorporates patented technologies and is the first product of its kind in the healthcare market. We have chosen Alphamed Group for their new technology, proven record and expertise.”
Alphamed Group played a significant role in installing and commissioning the system, as well as providing training for the doctors who will be using this new technology.
Monther Abbasi, General Manager- Medical & Laboratory Division, Alphamed Group, said: “This project reflects Alpahmed’s business strategy of associating with reputed providers of medical equipment and devices, as part of our efforts to offer cutting edge technology to top healthcare providers like Dr Sulaiman Al Habib Medical Center. We do this by having trained sales and after sales team that have the proper factory level expertise to install and maintain such equipments.”
“We are the first health system in the Middle East to adopt the new technology that represents a breakthrough in patient safety,” said Professor Sulaiman Al Majed Vice President of Medical Affairs for the group. “As a reputed Medical Center, we are committed to utilizing processes, programs and technologies that bring measurable improvement to the healthcare industry in the region. The equipment brings a new set of patients into the Lasik ambit, especially those who were earlier declared ineligible for this type of surgery, such as those with thin corneas, as the new machine offers a high degree of accuracy and precision.”
“The MEL-80 VISUMAX Combi workstation integrates the entire cycle of laser sight correction, enhancing efficiency, accuracy and safety as well as automates the administering process. We have chosen CARL Zeiss Meditec because they offer a fully integrated solution system for refractive laser surgery. It offers a state of the art solution for each stage of the treatment, from diagnosis and treatment planning through to flap incision, correction of vision defects and follow up. The new system is the fastest in creating the 3D cornea flap and offers the gentlest treatment throughout the different stages of Lasik procedure.”
The VisuMax MEL 80 solution represents a family of refractive surgery devices which form a perfectly integrated system. This provides physicians with an all round solution which is well placed to meet the challenges of tomorrow’s LASIK surgeries. This solution comes at a time when LASIK is seeing a dramatic increase in volume in the Middle East.
HMC was opened in Dubai Healthcare City on 4 May, 2008, adopting the highest industry standards in healthcare, in conjunction with top American, Canadian and European board certified doctors. The center has 40 clinics that provide sophisticated technologies in specialty areas. The center boasts sophisticated radiological diagnostic equipment, such as the Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI) that can ‘image’ conscious and moving patients without the need for general anesthesia or sedation. It also allows visualizing of the liver whilst holding your breath for only a short period and completes vascular angiography (MRA) without the need of ‘contrast’ materials. The center is also equipped with a 64-Slice Computed Tomography, the first in the Middle East that can create an image of the entire body in less than 10 seconds and produce an accurate visualization of the coronaries and diagnosis of heart diseases within 5 seconds. All the devices are connected to a central computer system network. The laboratory department at the center adopts state of the art technologies to perform more than 4,000 different laboratory analyses; it has a new blood-analysis device that can perform up to 160 tests on a single blood sample. In addition Bar-coding allows the center to reduce human intervention and the laboratory is linked to international programs for quality control.
