'We Want To Redefine Surgery': Abu Dhabi Links Operating Rooms To AI Platform

Abu Dhabi has connected 60 operating rooms across its hospitals to an artificial intelligence surgical platform in what Johnson and Johnson describes as a world first, creating a network that turns individual procedures into shared intelligence designed to improve patient outcomes across the emirate and beyond.

The programme links Abu Dhabi's healthcare providers including Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, PureHealth, Mediclinic Group and NMC Healthcare to Johnson and Johnson MedTech's Polyphonic platform, an open digital ecosystem for the operating room that aggregates surgical video data to identify patterns linked to bleeding and other complications, alerting surgeons in real time.

Dr Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said the emirate's connected health infrastructure made the initiative possible. "Every procedure can generate valuable knowledge, yet much of that is limited to one hospital, one operating room, and one surgical team," she said.

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"Surgical intelligence gives us the opportunity to scale and transform individual experience to collective surgical intelligence that can enhance the performance and quality of care across the system."

Tim Schmid, Executive Vice President and Worldwide Chairman of MedTech at Johnson and Johnson, said the programme was designed to produce a blueprint other health systems around the world could adopt. "This is the first time we've ever done this," Schmid said. "It's a first in world experience. And why Johnson and Johnson, as the largest healthcare company on the planet, is interested is in creating a blueprint that we can then expand to drive benefit for patients around the world."

A joint clinical trial, funded by both organisations, will run alongside the programme to validate findings and generate evidence applicable beyond Abu Dhabi. "This can never happen with one surgeon or one hospital or one health system," Schmid said. "What I love about what we're doing here is these are competing health systems that are coming together to aggregate data for the broader good."

Abu Dhabi's ability to bring competing providers into a single data-sharing framework was made possible by a decade of investment in unified health infrastructure. Dr Al Ghaithi said the Department of Health convened providers, technology partners and clinical leads together to address concerns over data sharing and patient confidentiality before the programme launched.

Dr Al Ghaithi said the ambition extended well beyond the emirate's borders. "We want to redefine surgery as we know it today," she said, "and to move from a health system where surgical excellence depends on where you are treated, who performs your surgery, to a system where collective surgical intelligence helps every single procedure to be safer, smarter, and more precise and personalised."

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