Ahmed Al Bastaki, Chief Strategy Officer At Rafed. We Apply Best Practices In The Healthcare Sector In Abu Dhabi

Ahmed Al Bastaki, Chief Strategy Officer At Rafed. We Apply Best Practices In The Healthcare Sector In Abu Dhabi

1. Tell us about the creation of Rafed as a procurement entity. How did this start?

Rafed was created one year ago as UAE’s prime group purchasing organization, supporting Abu Dhabi’s healthcare sector by ensuring the availability and quality of crucial pharmaceuticals, equipment, diagnostics, and consumables. As weresponded to the challenges of COVID-19, it became clear to us that procurement services are especially vital to ensure that people have access to the vaccines and protective equipment that they need. Through Rafed, our goal has been to centralise services while applying industry best practices and harnessing technology. We therefore set up a unique operating model that delivers economies of scale, efficiency and more competitive pricing while ensuring supply chain security and quality.

2. In the one year since you began operations, what has been the biggest procurement challenge in healthcare specifically?

Generally, in healthcare procurement, one of the biggest challenges tends to be managing cost efficiency. Procurement processes can sometimes lead to wastages in healthcare sector spending, if not managed properly. Our approach to minimising this risk and increasing efficiency has been to invest in automating manual processes and working very closely with product and service providers aligned with our goals.

During the past 12 months, Rafed has led the procurement and supply of COVID-19 vaccines through ourDistribution Centre in KIZAD, securing the first global shipment of the breakthrough treatment for COVID-19 – Sotrovimab and also the first procurement contract for AstraZeneca’s AZD7442 – the world’s first long-acting antibody COVID-19 medication.

3. What is the HOPE Consortium and how does Rafed’s role fit within the scope of international vaccine distribution?

The HOPE Consortium is Abu Dhabi’s commitment to the global battle against the COVID-19 pandemic. Combining its unique logistical capabilities and geographical proximity to 2/3 of the global population, Abu Dhabi has launched one of the largest and most integrated logistical efforts of its type to deliver hope and vital vaccines to the global community.

As one of the leading co-founders, Rafed has played a critical role in streamlining and centralising the distribution of millions of COVID-19 vaccines and relevant medical equipment around the world.We manage an advanced cold and ultra-cold storage hub and distribution centre that can hold over 120 million vaccines and aligns its deliveries with the ability of recipient countries across the world. We also have the capability to store all types of vaccines at temperatures ranging from of +8 °C to -30 °C.

The Rafed Distribution Centre also houses a Freezer Farm enabling the safe handling and storage of over 11 million vaccine doses at -80 °C. With our support, the HOPE Consortium has delivered over 210 million vaccines in more than60 countries around the world todate.

4. What is your view on the future of healthcare procurement in the UAE, and how does it compare to the rest of the world?

We have set ambitious expansion plans across the Emirates, fuelled by cutting-edge technology and industry 4.0 enabled warehousing. Thinking of the future of healthcare procurement, we aim to buildstate-of-the-art warehouses that operate to industry 4.0 standards, including robotics, security systems and digitalisationof processes – all of which will be critical to the growth and progression of the entire healthcare supply chain. As we provide advanced solutions to organisations at every stage of the supply chain, we can continue to develop smart systems that streamline processes across all our operations.

We plan to introduce an integrated SAP digital system to provide immediate procurement and logistics solutions to clients and introduce an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system to identify processes that can be automated. Globally, when it comes to healthcare procurement, we see the industry pushing towards greater cost-efficiency and digitalisation and our successes in 2021 have only fuelled our ambitions.

5. In the aftermath of the COVID-19 crisis, does the global health procurement marketneed to explore other investments?

The pandemic has offered many valuable lessons to healthcare procurement organisations. We have taken the lessons from the pandemic to heart, through oursupport for Abu Dhabi’s successful response to COVID-19, as well as the HOPE Consortium’s international efforts to facilitate global access to vaccines. Every investment that we have made has been guided by the overarching goal of ensuring supply chain security and quality.

After one year of operations, Rafed has grown from an in-house department to a UAE entity supporting all corners of the UAE’s healthcare procurement needs. We quickly established ourselves as a leader in the UAE’s pharmaceutical logistics sector, successfully operating out of our warehouse and storage facility of the future, the Rafed Distribution Centre.

A large part of this success can be attributed to our investment towards leveraging advanced technology, both, in our distribution centre and our day-to-day operations, and deploying smart systems that are focused on streamlining the overall procurement process.