Johnson & Johnson Grows Intelligent OR Network with Abu Dhabi Deal

Johnson & Johnson announced a collaboration with the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DOH), the regulator of the healthcare sector in Abu Dhabi, UAE to launch a global program to build an open surgical intelligence network.

The initiative will integrate J&J’s Polyphonic open digital ecosystem with the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi and technology partners including Amazon Web Services (AWS) and NVIDIA. It’s expected to deploy the Polyphonic Surgery application into Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health to connect operating rooms across the emirate to a surgical intelligence system.

Through Polyphonic, relevant procedures contribute high-fidelity video and multimodal data that will be curated, labeled, and continuously flow into a governed infrastructure. The system is designed to speed responsible and trusted AI and compress tech development and the ecosystem will connect insights generated before, during, and after surgery.

“Today marks an important step forward for the global community to advance innovation for surgical teams and in service of patients,” said Hani Abouhalka, Company Group Chair, Surgery, MedTech, Johnson & Johnson. “No single company, hospital, or developer can do this alone. We must bring together innovative health systems, technology leaders, clinicians and researchers with a drive to start now and serve the world.”

Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi, PureHealth, Mediclinic Group, and NMC Healthcare will deploy Polyphonic across operating rooms. Participating hospitals will use the solution to capture surgical video in order to enable real-time collaboration as well as support structured case review, peer consultation, and case efficiency.

Each case will add to a structured, anonymized surgical dataset that will establish an approved source for AI development in surgical care.

“This program builds on Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system, where clinical care, data, AI and research are connected to deliver impact at scale,” H.E. Dr. Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said. “By extending the intelligent OR network across hospitals, we are standardizing capabilities, enabling shared intelligence, and creating a continuous learning system where every procedure has the potential to improve the next. Moving from individual advancements to system-wide progress for patients globally.”

“Working with the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi and their integrated health ecosystem has helped us to accelerate the pathway of building the first node of a global surgical network,” added Shan Jegatheeswaran, Global President, Polyphonic, MedTech, Johnson & Johnson. “We are already seeing that same spirit in other health authorities, hospital leaders, academic institutions, and technology partners joining this ecosystem. Our role is to create the conditions for the leading minds in medicine, technology, and research to do their best work together in service of better outcomes for patients, everywhere.”