"Ireland’s health care sector does not adopt global innovations as quickly as it could"

What's your name?

Mohammad Al-Ubaydli

What position do you hold?

CEO

How long have you held the position?

Coming up to 10th anniversary!

What are your day to day responsibilities?

Joining up everyone’s work around the product. Our sales and success teams give us feedback every day on what would generate the most benefit for the most patients the most quickly. And with every update the product, the success team can deliver more more quickly, and the sales team can show more benefits to more health economies.

I spend most of my day sharing the information with the teams.

I spend most of my days with customers and users. I learn so much and still I find more and more to learn. I find that medical records are fractal: the more you dig the more you uncover and, as a data nerd, it’s a pleasure.

What is your professional background?

Physician and programmer, I worked as a doctor then wrote six books about IT in health care.

Tell us something very few people know about you?

I co-authored a seventh book, teaching chefs how to use handheld computers. A chef had read my book teaching doctors about handheld computers. A chef called me to explain chefs were similar to surgeons: short on time and temper! She was right and I was intrigued so we wrote the book together.

You are speaking at the 2018 Health Summit. What are you speaking about?

“How can innovative technology get to scale”

What challenges do you see for the healthcare sector in Ireland?

Ireland’s health care sector does not adopt global innovations as quickly as it could.

This is surprising because:

(1) I see Irish startups selling their innovations all over the world

(2) outside the health sector I see Ireland’s other industries adopting innovations from all over the world

(3) Ireland has a small population so it can be quick and clever.

The Irish health care system should be adopting innovations as quickly as Estonia, Denmark or Singapore, countries that put the UK to shame.

Where would you like to see the health service in 10 years time?

Organised around the individual rather than the institution. Everyone wants to be patient-centric but too many actions are organisation-centric.

Dr. Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, Founder and CEO, Patients Know Best is appearing at The 14th National Health Summit. The agenda and further details for this important national event, at Croke Park on February 8th, is available athealthsummit.ie