Intelligent CIO Middle East Issue 54 | Page 10

NEWS EMEA in strong position to take Digital Transformation ambitions to next level UAE labs get world’s first connected management system to accelerate COVID-19 testing The Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) region is in a strong position to take its Digital Transformation ambitions to the next level. That’s the opinion of Mohammed Abukhater, F5 Network’s RVP for Middle East and Africa, who said the region finds itself in a strong position to adapt to intensifying imperatives for change. Speaking at a virtual press conference hosted in Dubai, Abukhater said organisations irrespective of industry or function are becoming more application-centric in order to boost innovation, move faster and adapt to increasingly nuanced user demands. He said: “In fact, we’re starting to see many moving beyond the first phase of Digital Transformation – business process automation – and start to scale their digital footprint with purposeful technology as it relates to cloud, automation and containers.” Pointing to new figures from F5’s flagship State of Application Services report, 91% of surveyed EMEA organisations now have specific Digital Transformation execution plans in progress. This compares to 84% in the USA and 82% in the Asia Pacific, China and Japan (APCJ) region. A total of 66% of EMEA respondents also said they depend on applications to run their business – the highest of any region worldwide. Furthermore, 88% claimed to be leveraging multi-cloud environments, compared to 87% in the Americas and 86% in APCJ. Mohammed Abukhater, F5 Network’s RVP for Middle East and Africa InterSystems, a global leader in healthcare information systems and technology solutions, has signed an agreement with Pure Health, the largest laboratory operator in the GCC, to deploy InterSystems TrakCare Lab Enterprise (TCLE) system, the first and only laboratory business management solution, to support the UAE’s testing initiatives for COVID-19. InterSystems is a creative data technology provider dedicated to helping customers solve the most critical scalability, interoperability and speed problems in their business operations. Pure Health is a pioneering healthcare solutions provider and the largest laboratory network in the Gulf region with 115 labs and employing 750 healthcare professionals across the country. Under this initiative, InterSystems’ web-based TCLE system will enable Pure Health to streamline testing workflows and make data easily accessible from all parties, thereby accelerating testing for COVID-19 in the UAE. Pure Health has two dedicated COVID-19 testing laboratories in the emirates of Abu Dhabi and Sharjah, in addition to opening one more laboratory in Dubai. With this, the organisation will have the largest COVID-19 testing capability in Middle East with the capacity to perform 25,000 tests daily. Ali Abi Raad, Country Manager for the Middle East and India at InterSystems, said: “Our team has been working round the clock so that our partners can speed up turnaround times on results and create specialised labs to reduce the load on public hospitals while fighting the COVID-19 pandemic.” 10 INTELLIGENTCIO www.intelligentcio.com