Abu Dhabi pioneers collaborative approach to responsible AI in healthcare at Health Leaders Roundtable
This collaborative dialogue explored key challenges and opportunities in unlocking AI's potential, and the optimal governance principles required to develop an agile framework for effectively integrating AI in healthcare
Its key principles are rooted in inclusion, equity, and ethics, to ensure patient safety while enabling responsible innovation
Participants included academics, technology experts, and pharmaceuticals leaders from across Africa, the US, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East
Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates – The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH), the regulator of the healthcare sector in the Emirate, convened senior international government officials at the Health Leaders Roundtable to shape a Declaration on AI governance principles for healthcare. Held on the sidelines of Abu Dhabi Global Health Week (ADGHW), it considered the challenges and opportunities in unlocking the potential of artificial intelligence (AI), and explored key principles in the governance of AI in healthcare.
Hosted together with PwC Middle East, findings from the roundtable will inform the development of a collaborative approach that will serve as a reference for governments, health systems, and innovators to ensure that AI's integration into healthcare systems is transparent, responsible, and inclusive.
His Excellency Mansoor Ibrahim Al Mansoori, Chairman of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, added: 'AI is not tomorrow's technology, it is today's reality. While many of us are adapting to its rise, our children will grow up with it as the norm. That's why the decisions we make today, around ethics, equity, and safety, must be made together. Through this declaration, we will establish a globally accessible guideline that extends beyond borders and commercial interests. This document is a call to action for governments, innovators, and healthcare leaders everywhere.'
The forthcoming Declaration on governance principles for AI in healthcare will outline guiding principles for responsible AI deployment to improve health outcomes and protect patient rights. Designed as a globally accessible resource, the declaration will inspire unified governance and serve as a trusted reference for stakeholders worldwide.
In her opening remarks at the Roundtable, Her Excellency Dr. Noura Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, stated: 'AI has extraordinary potential in healthcare. It is already transforming how we deliver care, how we diagnose, and how we discover. But with great power comes great responsibility. In Abu Dhabi, we are harnessing AI as our engine and policy as our platform, turning data into life-saving insight, and insight into meaningful action. Our vision is to deliver healthcare that is precise, proactive, and personal and to do so in a way that puts people, not technology, at the centre.'
During the Roundtable, participants emphasised the need for agile legal and regulatory frameworks to enable the safe and ethical application of AI in healthcare, while enabling innovation. With an emphasis on the need for a human-centred approach, discussions explored key themes including standardisation of data, data privacy and trust, skills development and community engagement.
Key insights from the Roundtable highlight the need for:
Transparent testing frameworks to ensure AI tools meet real-world clinical standards;
Collaborative ecosystems that unite regulators, industry, academia, and civil society across geographies;
Responsible data access that protects privacy, ensure security, and clarify ownership;
Addressing the AI skills gap by scaling education and awareness across healthcare systems and prepare healthcare workforces for a new era.
Aligning AI use cases with real-world patient and system challenges, avoiding technology for technology's sake.
The Health Leaders Roundtable brought together a distinguished group of local and international voices, including government officials, AI experts, healthcare executives, and multilateral organisations, to explore the shared principles and practices needed to deploy AI responsibly, effectively, and equitably.
These themes build on Abu Dhabi's rapidly advancing AI ecosystem, which in the field of health, is taking billions of data points, and turning them into life-changing insights.
Supporting the Emirates's approach is the Global AI Healthcare Academy, launched by DoH, which equips healthcare professionals worldwide with theoretical knowledge and hands-on training needed to implement AI technologies effectively, setting a global standard for capacity building. In addition, Malaffi - the region's first Health Information Exchange - provides secure, real-time access to patient data across both public and private healthcare providers. This seamless data integration is crucial for enabling AI tools to be deployed safely, efficiently, and at scale.
ADGHW is a major government initiative from DoH, and serves as a platform for innovation and collaboration under the 2025 theme 'Towards Longevity: Redefining Health and Well-being.' By convening diverse stakeholders from around the world, ADGHW is a community without borders that seeks to advance the future of health and well-being.
About Abu Dhabi Global Health Week
Abu Dhabi Global Health Week (ADGHW) is a major government-led initiative by the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH). It drives transformative innovation and collaboration under the theme 'Towards Longevity: Redefining Health and Well-being'. ADGHW serves as a year-round 'always-on' platform with a proactive approach centred around preventive, personalised, and holistic care. Held with and for the world, ADGHW is a platform for open, inclusive exchange, and joint action.
ADGHW welcomes entrepreneurs, policymakers, researchers, innovators, and investors to transform ideas into action, and collaborate around topics like advancing precision care and building a resilient technology-driven ecosystem. ADGHW 2025 proudly collaborates with key strategic partners, including Foundation Partner, M42 and Global Health and Longevity Champion, PureHealth. Additional exhibitors and sponsors include Burjeel, GSK, Johnson & Johnson, Lilly, Microsoft, Novo Nordisk, Viatris, Novartis, Roche, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, Deloitte, Gilead, Juvenescence, NYU Abu Dhabi and Pfizer, united in their commitment to advancing the future of healthcare and life sciences.
For more information on ADGHW, visit https://www.adghw.com/
For media inquiries or interview opportunities, please contact:
Maroun Farah, Senior Media Relations Manager, Weber Shandwick
E: mfarah@webershandwick.com
About the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH):
The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi is the regulative body of the healthcare sector in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi. Committed to ensuring excellence in healthcare, DoH monitors the health status of the population while shaping the regulatory framework for the health system. This includes inspecting against regulations, enforcing standards and encouraging the adoption of world-class best practices and performance targets by all healthcare providers in the Emirate. Abu Dhabi remains dedicated to shaping the future of healthcare by establishing an intelligent and sustainable ecosystem that prioritises health, longevity and quality of life for all community members. Leveraging state-of-the-art infrastructure and cutting-edge capabilities, DoH continues to develop and implement initiatives and programmes in line with its strategic focus areas, Healthy Population, Best-in-Class Care and Resilience and Innovation. These efforts reflect DoH's unwavering commitment to predicting, preventing and personalising healthcare for every individual.
For further information on DOH, visit https://www.doh.gov.ae/ and follow on X, Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
For media inquiries, please contact:
Mariam Al Marzooqi
E: msalmarzooqi@doh.gov.ae
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Al Etihad
5 hours ago
- Al Etihad
Pulse and hopes high when healthcare and Al hold hands
3 June 2025 01:00 EISSA ALI ALMANNEI *Technological progress sometimes affects human lives slightly and sometimes in profound ways. But when it empowers vital sectors like healthcare, the hopes pinned on this technological revolution increase. This is exactly the case with harnessing artificial intelligence in the healthcare industry and the adoption of AI tools by healthcare institutions to assist at every stage of the care language models, chatbots, and voice assistants are now integrated into AI-powered workflows across clinics and hospitals, helping in internal processes and medical records. AI can improve operations, from human resources to insurance claims, facilitating data management and applying AI tools to generate automated reports and resource utilisation metrics in real saves a lot of time on administrative tasks and interactions while reducing costs. AI is not limited to administrative and financial operations. In fact, it can give anonymous patient data, such as MRI scans, CT images, lab results, and clinical notes, to feed AI diagnostic radiology, AI helps doctors transcend the limitations of the human eye, as it trains algorithms to reconstruct blurry images and highlight areas of concern, such as tumors or fractures. With big data and patient record analysis, healthcare professionals can detect patterns and risk factors that might be missed in traditional diagnostic of the fundamental advantages of AI in healthcare is its ability to improve diagnostic accuracy and treatment plans, which enables faster decision-making by providing physicians with precise, real-time information. In emergencies, where time is critical to saving lives, AI-assisted robotics can improve surgical outcomes, aid surgeons in enhancing precision, reduce complications, and improve patient the pharmaceutical sector, companies rely on AI to analyse chemical composition databases, protein interactions, and side effects. This not only accelerates drug development but also increases the success rate of new medications while improving safety and reducing the risk of adverse reactions. AI can even predict individual responses to treatments by analysing genetic profiles and medical histories and discovering how a specific gene variant affects drug addition, AI can simulate patients in clinical training, allowing students to adapt to various cases. Virtual patients respond in real time to what the student says or does, creating a more realistic experience. AI is also being used in mental health, guiding cancer survivors through post-treatment care, and assisting in the early detection of diseases, including certain types of AI is still relatively new in healthcare, there is now a smart hospital in China operated by fourteen AI-powered virtual doctors who diagnose and treat patients without any human staff. This virtual team is capable of treating over 3,000 patients daily. This implies that AI's ability to match, or even exceed, human diagnostic capabilities in terms of accuracy and speed is within there are challenges related to the ambiguity of AI models to physicians, making it difficult to understand how they arrive at conclusions. This lack of clarity can confuse doctors when they cannot grasp the reasons behind an algorithm's there are concerns about protecting patients' medical privacy, as AI relies on massive datasets that frequently contain sensitive health information. AI outcomes can also be biased due to disparities or differences in training data, leading to distorted results. Therefore, the quality and balance of the data used to train these models are critical to ensuring accurate and reliable hopes for AI in healthcare are undeniable. Medical AI systems can process information faster than any human doctor, but caution is needed to address challenges, use data analysis and advanced analytics, and continue developing technologies that aid in disease diagnosis, prevention, personalised treatment, and drug development to improve the quality of human life. * The writer is a researcher at TRENDS Research & Advisory
Zawya
12 hours ago
- Zawya
Athar+: Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an launches new hub to empower social enterprises and non-profits in Abu Dhabi
Abu Dhabi: In a significant step to advance community-driven change, the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an, the Abu Dhabi Government's official channel to receive social contributions, operating under the Department of Community Development, announces the launch of Athar+ (Athar Plus), Abu Dhabi's first purpose-driven hub dedicated to accelerating social impact. This launch comes as part of the 'From the Community to the Community' label, an initiative launched during the 'Year of Community' by the Authority, aimed at promoting community engagement. Athar+ brings together social enterprises, non-profits, and impact makers into one collaborative ecosystem for social entrepreneurship. Funded by community contributions, Athar+ is an initiative by the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an, designed to enable impact-driven organisations to thrive. The hub provides designated workspaces, expert mentorship, professional services, and tailored growth programmes—all aimed at helping social enterprises and non-profits scale their missions and deepen their impact across Abu Dhabi. Located at Madar_39, Athar+ serves as a catalyst for collaboration, entrepreneurship, and inclusion; offering a dedicated workspace for impact-driven organisations to develop solutions, share knowledge, and access the resources they need to build a more inclusive and resilient future. On this occasion, His Excellency Dr. Mugheer Khamis Al Khaili, Chairman of the Department of Community Development, affirmed that the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an continues, throughout the 'Year of the Community,' to launch impactful initiatives and creating an enabling environment that supports the achievement of sustainable positive impact for Abu Dhabi's society. His Excellency Dr. Al Khaili stated: 'The launch of Athar+ platform reflects the social sector's commitment to building an ecosystem that empowers third sector entities, including public benefit organizations and social enterprises—entities that have emerged from the community to serve the community. More than 150 third sector organizations are expected to benefit from this platform, offering unique services, programs, and initiatives to members of our society.' He added: 'We will spare no effort in strengthening Abu Dhabi's position as an enabling city for all institutions dedicated to serving the community and addressing social challenges with innovative and effective solutions.' His Excellency Abdullah Humaid Al Ameri, Director General, the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an, said: 'Athar+ comes as part of the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an's efforts to empower the third sector, promotes social entrepreneurship, and build a thriving ecosystem that enables this sector. The hub aims to accelerate the growth of non-profits, social enterprises and social initiatives through capacity-building, mentorship and fostering collaboration and networking opportunities. These efforts contribute to addressing social priorities in Abu Dhabi while building a more cohesive and inclusive community.' His Excellency also expressed his appreciation to the Abu Dhabi community members for their contributions to support this pioneering initiative, particularly commending Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank for its contribution, representing a model of effective collaboration between the public and private sectors in driving community-focused initiatives. He emphasised that such steadfast commitment serves as a cornerstone for achieving inclusive and sustainable development. With offerings such as capacity-building workshops, networking events, one-on-one advisory support, and flexible membership options, Athar+ reinforces the Authority's long-standing commitment to connecting the community and nurturing an active, empowered social sector. Through the launch of Athar+, the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an strengthens Abu Dhabi's position as a regional leader in social entrepreneurship as well as reflecting the Authority's broader vision of enabling a culture of giving, participation, and measurable social progress. About the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an Established in 2019 by the Department of Community Development Abu Dhabi (DCD), The Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an is the Abu Dhabi government's official channel to receive social contributions through a unified platform, dedicated to uniting community efforts and fostering a culture of giving by collecting contributions, directing them towards social priorities, empowering social enterprises, and promoting volunteering to build a cohesive community. The Authority supports projects that address social priorities in the health, education, environment, infrastructure, and social services, aiming to nurture a collaborative and active community by connecting individuals and entities in the public, private, and civil society spheres to support their communities. Contributions made to the Authority of Social Contribution - Ma'an are transparently deployed in full to social projects led by key partners meaning benefactors can maximise the impact their funds have in driving community engagement and providing access to essential resources, programmes, and funding for organisations across Abu Dhabi to achieve their Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainable development goals.
Khaleej Times
14 hours ago
- Khaleej Times
UAE: Free office space, workshops in Abu Dhabi for startups
Abu Dhabi is now home to a year-round hub for startups and organisations delivering social good, following the launch of Athar+, a permanent platform by the Authority of Social Contribution – Ma'an. Unveiled at M39 this week, a vibrant co-working space in the capital, Athar+ represents a major expansion of Ma'an's earlier social incubator model, which was limited to just two cohorts annually. This new initiative is designed to be more inclusive and continuous, offering free office space, access to workshops, networking opportunities, and both financial and logistical support to startups, NGOs, and social enterprises making an impact in the emirate. 'Today, we are no longer only covering the traditional model of business incubation,' said Salem Al Shamsi, Executive Director of Social Incubation and Contracting at Ma'an. 'We're covering ideation, social venture acceleration, and providing a social incubator that runs permanently throughout the year. Not every enterprise is at the same level of growth, Athar+ is designed to meet these different stages with tailored support.' Al Shamsi added that what makes Athar+ unique is its focus on outcomes: 'We always start with impact. Since launching Ma'an in 2019, we've built everything with that word in mind. Athar+ is the next step — the 'plus' is the continuous improvement and future focus.' The platform now accepts applications on a rolling basis, without limiting participation to a specific number or sector. 'Any enterprise addressing Abu Dhabi's social priorities and offering measurable social value can apply,' he said. New chapter for MS Group For Ahmad Al Shawa, General Coordinator of MS Group in Al Ain, the launch of Athar+ marks a much needed turning point. His organisation, which raises awareness and provides support to people with Multiple Sclerosis, was selected after a series of interviews with Ma'an. 'Just by being here, it's already an opportunity,' said Al Shawa at the launch. 'This is more than just office space. You're surrounded by incubators, startups, NGOs, and investors — it's a platform that brings the whole third sector together.' MS Group, which was first launched in 2009, has faced ups and downs over the years. With Athar+, Al Shawa hopes to rebuild the organisation's legacy and expand its reach through new partnerships and exposure. 'It fills a lot of gaps — especially in making connections, sharing experiences, and possibly finding sponsors or investors.' The group's recent inclusion in the Arab Union for MS was a key milestone. 'That partnership has helped us exchange experiences with MS groups across the Arab world,' he explained. 'Personally, as someone living with MS, I see the differences in treatment, awareness, and systems across countries. Learning from others makes a big difference.' AI to detect speech delay Hamdan Al Ali, a PhD student in natural language processing at MBZUAI, is another entrepreneur set to benefit from Athar+. His startup, Chatty Check, is an AI-powered game that helps diagnose speech delay in children — a condition affecting an estimated 14% of children worldwide. 'Instead of having a therapist sit with a child for 60 minutes, the child plays a game that incorporates the same diagnostic methods — like reading a story or talking, while the AI analyses the interaction,' said Al Ali. The tool is still in its pilot phase, currently being tested in nurseries in the UAE and Portugal, in both English and Emirati Arabic versions. Al Ali first joined Ma'an's original incubator, where he received guidance on scaling his idea. Now, with Athar+, he has access to the tools he needs to grow. 'I can pitch to investors, use the facilities, host presentations, and work out of a professional space — all of which are essential to taking the product to the next level.'
