Abu Dhabi tech-enabled healthcare company M42 has launched Ossi, an AI platform designed to help with administration and give doctors more time with patients.
The platform, announced at the Abu Dhabi Future Health Summit, will be available at seven M42 centres in the UAE and Bahrain, and is estimated to help doctors spend up to 60 per cent more time with patients.
Kareem Shahin, M42’s chief executive of Digital Health Solutions Platform and group chief digital officer, told The National that Ossi, launched in partnership with Microsoft, is “an AI platform that has been built by and for people here in Abu Dhabi”.
It works alongside electronic medical record systems, bringing together AI agents, voice recognition and healthcare-focused large language models to support physicians before, during and after a consultation.
“Before the patient arrives, the doctor can open Ossi, where the Patient Summary Agent provides a summary of the patient’s historical details and all of their medical details,” Mr Shahin said.
“So during the patient appointment there is more time between the physician and the patient, and they are focused on the patient and their needs rather than checking all of the medical summaries.
“Using AI to summarise medical history leaves nothing missed, so that the physician will see everything as per the most recent data, such as medications, lab results, radiology, and all of the recent appointments that the patient has had.
The future of health care
“It’s a cloud-based AI solution, and we’ve started implementing it across the network. We’re looking through the strategic partnership with Microsoft to host Ossi on Microsoft Azure cloud and take it globally, with many clients and many countries capitalising on the reachability of Microsoft worldwide.”
The name Ossi comes from the ossicle bones in the human ear, which help to amplify and refine sound.
“It listens to Arabic and English, and now we’re working even with our international partners to translate it into understanding Greek and other languages,” he said.
Mr Shahin said that during the consultation with the patient, another of Ossi's AI agents listens in.
“While the physician is interacting with the patient, the Scribing Agent listens to the consultation and transforms the conversation into a structured clinical note for the physician to review,” he said.
“The physician can then use the Chat Agent to ask questions about the patient’s medical information and identify best practice based on available evidence and clinical guidelines.
“Finally, the Coding Agent analyses the clinical documentation and suggests relevant medical codes, supporting the physician and coding workflow.”
Together, the four agents work to provide AI assistance across the consultation, while keeping the physician at the centre of clinical decision-making.
Working with instead of replacing hospital records
Mr Shahin said that Ossi is designed to sit alongside, rather than replace, a hospital’s electronic medical records (EMR).
“It doesn’t interrupt the EMR,” he said. “It is beside the EMR integrated within the doctor’s workflow.”
“If a patient is going to see an oncology doctor, usually the doctor spends three to four hours before the patient visit to review the file. With Ossi and AI, this can be reduced to less than 10 to 15 minutes", as the doctor receives “the relevant summary of the file”.
Mr Shahin described Ossi as part of Abu Dhabi’s wider digital health ecosystem, and M42’s government healthcare platforms were hosted on the UAE’s sovereign cloud, providing privacy for medical information.
“We have security measures and we have a very robust security team aligned with the UAE Cyber Security Council, applying all of the guidelines and making sure our systems are updated as per the regulatory standard," he said.
“Definitely at the end of the day, who will make the final decision is the doctor himself. But it’s a tool that can help to reduce time, to be more efficient, and not miss anything.”
The seven M42 centres where Ossi is available are: Amana UAE; Amana Bahrain; Healthpoint; HealthPlus; Mubadala Health Dubai; Sheikh Sultan bin Zayed Hospital and Imperial College London Diabetes and Endocrine Centre in Abu Dhabi.