US Telemedicine Firm LifeBot Launches Medical Command Network in Abu Dhabi

The product aims at the first minutes after an injury, when a paramedic or soldier may be alone with a casualty and far from specialist help. "The paramedic is left alone with the patient," Sherif Hamed, LifeBot's chief executive, told Gulf News. "It connects the patient at the point of injury with the physicians, and the physicians with the paramedics in the field, on one level." A second layer links everything to a national command centre, where authorities can see what is happening on the ground and act on it, he said.

According to the company, the system collects physiological data, vital signs and images from the patient and sends them in real time to a remote physician, who can then guide the person giving care. Hamed described the data as "ICU-level", enough for a doctor to make a full assessment and prepare the receiving hospital. The data keeps streaming to the destination facility while the patient is being moved.

LifeBot says the network covers three stages. At the point of injury, data goes to remote physicians who direct the carer. At a field hospital, the same patient record follows the casualty, and treatment can be supervised by doctors in another location. For transport and allocation, authorities get an overview of available beds, specialities and blood stocks across hospitals, along with the number of people injured, so they can decide where to send patients and how to use resources.

The platform includes a decision-support function based on the company's Apollo model family. LifeBot says a clinician must start every AI task and approve its output before it is shared, and that treatment decisions stay with people. The company also said some of its image and signal analysis models are still being assessed, and that the models enabled on each delivered station, and their validation status, will be set out with each order.

Hamed acknowledged that many good medical technologies already exist, but argued that most solve a problem in one place and do not follow the patient through the whole chain of care. "They are unable to continue the journey in one unified platform," he said.

Asked why LifeBot chose the UAE for the launch, Hamed called Abu Dhabi one of the leading markets for adopting new technology. He said the country's leaders have a clear vision for medical and military medical technology and encourage companies to operate there.

Hamed described the launch as the start of a new phase for the company after about 20 years. LifeBot was founded in 2009, and he traced its roots to a government-funded project that began in 1998.

The congress runs at ADNEC Centre Abu Dhabi until November 13. LifeBot did not disclose customers, orders or prices for the network in its launch remarks.