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Solution
REMEDIAL PROGRAM ENTREPRENEURIAL EXCELLENCE
REM 8013
Entrepreneurial Excellence
Spring 2024
Innovation and Entrepreneurship of UAE Mulk Healthcare e-hospital
Table of Contents
1.1 Background of the identified Entrepreneurial Venture in UAE. 5
2.0 Primary/Secondary Research done. 5
3.0 Steps for Preparing for their Entrepreneurial Journey. 6
4.0 Challenges and Opportunities Encountered. 7
5.0 Discussion and Conclusion. 8
6.1 Appendix 1: Summary of collected primary data. 9
6.2 Appendix 2: Kotter’s 8 Stages Model 10
Selected Title: Innovation and Entrepreneurship of UAE Mulk Healthcare e-hospital
Abstract
In this report a selected entrepreneurial venture in United Arab Emirates (UAE) has been appraised and evaluated on its importance. The selected entrepreneurial venture is the UAE’s Mulk Healthcare downloadable application used for offering global medical services. This was introduced in May 2020 contributing to UAE’s Ministry of Health upgrading their hospitals into virtual healthcare areas. In order to achieve the intended objectives, the questions of focus include primary/secondary research used by founders of the venture, steps pursued by founders of the venture in preparing for their entrepreneurial journey and challenges and opportunities founders of the venture encountered. The findings of this report evidence that primary data from questionnaires were used by the researcher to identify the demand for virtual health. Also, through analysis of gap in literature where limited research has been done in UAE telemedicine, need to venture in this sector was established. The results also indicate different steps followed from initiation to end of the project with challenges including lack of sufficient resources, lack of knowledge and awareness on use and lack of readiness to embrace the innovation. A set of recommendations have been generated to mitigate these challenges.
1.0 Introduction
1.1 Background of the identified Entrepreneurial Venture in UAE
The selected entrepreneurial venture in this report is the UAE’S Mulk Healthcare e-hospital (Gulf Business, 2020). This is a venture established with a purpose of offering end-to-end services ranging from booking appointments, sourcing for consultation, securing health insurance approvals, diagnosis, prescription and medication. From a broad context, the e-hospital is identified in Li et al. (2022) as a workflow based integrated system in cloud applied in provision of care without necessarily leveraging on physical/one on one consultation. In UAE case, the first e-hospital venture was in 2019 by Orient Insurance and Allianz Care only targeting international Health Insurance Customers. In 2020, Sharjah-based healthcare organisation Mulk Healthcare introduced their digital hospital venture Mulk- E-Hospital. The popularity of this venture can be informed by its inclusion of a network of 2,000 doctors and accessing to multiple diagnostic clinics, hospital and medical experts (ArabianBusiness, 2020). Based on this background information, it is essential to evaluate business analytics of this venture.
1.2 Report Aim, Objectives
The aim of this report is to appraise and evaluate importance of innovation and entrepreneurship in the e-hospital venture by UAE’S Mulk Healthcare. The area of evaluation is application of data analytics in informing best practice in the organisation operations.
To achieve this aim, the following objectives would be pursued;
- To analyse primary /secondary research done by Mulk Healthcare for completion of e-Hospital venture
- To evaluate the steps pursued by founders of the venture in preparing for e-hospital project
- To analyse challenges and opportunities of founders of e-Hospital encountered
2.0 Primary/Secondary Research done
In an organisation research, Mazhar et al. (2021) note that primary or secondary research can be used. This is where primary research include researcher utilising a real interface with respondents with secondary data inclusive of research information from third party sources.
2.1 Primary Research
Before rolling out the program, primary data was sourced from healthcare providers with approximately 3 years of working experience in UAE tertiary, secondary, PHCs and private healthcare institutions. The purpose of the primary data was intended to evaluate their willingness in using e-hospital and the potential barriers of their implementation. A summary of the primary data responses is as illustrated in appendix 1. From the primary data, Mulk Healthcare found that at 13.70%, majority of public health care providers in UAE a having an experience with application of e-Hospitals. This is with 59.6% of entire healthcare providers noting of working history with online medical practices. With the respondents being 2,298, only 315 noted of lack of willingness in working for the e-hospital. This is with majority of the respondents noting that they would be willing to work in an e-hospital setting. Similar with Li et al. (2022) research, the primary data obtained by the organisation had hypothesised on the importance of e-health in promoting the quality level of healthcare provision in UAE.
2.2 Secondary Research
For Mulk Healthcare, they relied on secondary data from Omnia Health (2022) which had demonstrated technology as becoming mainstream in more than 50% of hospitals in UAE. This is with upto 90% of doctors using smartphones and medical application for providing healthcare opportunities. From this, the organisation noted that by introducing e-hospital, they would manage to tap into the different care providers lacking e-hospital opportunity. Also, Alnakhi et al. (2023) secondary research was appropriate which demonstrate on Telehealth visits in Dubai Health Authority at the times of COVID-19. The findings in the report had hypothesised that patients accessing care in areas of family medicine, video visits, non-Emiratis and Older Patients had an access to healthcare promptly. This increased the turnaround hence efficiency. Finally, from the reviewed secondary research, majority of the research works had been done in the already highly developed countries. This is with limited availability of data in UAE hence limitations in successfully implementing e-hospital.
3.0 Steps for Preparing for their Entrepreneurial Journey
Prior the venturing into the e-hospital in 2020, Mulk International was already in existence. Since 1982, the organisation has been working in delivering cutting edge technology and skilled employees in different areas of diagnostic clinics, physiotherapy centres and telemedicine facilities (Mulk International, 2022). For the e-hospital venture, being a new entrepreneurship program, Kotters-8- Stages was used (see appendix 2). The sense of urgency was created by the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic where face-to-face consultations needed to be reduced. As a result, Mulk International identified need for initiating a strategy for a continued virtual consultations and provision of highly safe and effective care for patients and doctors. After this, the team came up with group of IT experts, doctors, IT experts for building a guiding coalition. Specifically, the experts were in a position of using score matrix and risks (Choi and Lee, 2022) for identifying appropriateness of the options available. Developing vision and strategy include leadership functions, oversight, clinic process, technical requirements capacity development and procurement decisions. All barriers were further eliminated with consultation with different practitioners achieved. At this point, Mulk International was able to introduce the e-hospital successfully and became part of UAE Telemedicine successfully offering routine-based services. It is further integrated to be part of UAE culture of healthcare services which is quality and promptly.
4.0 Challenges and Opportunities Encountered
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