An interview with Romel Khalife, Country Manager – UAE and Kuwait, Oracle Health & Life Sciences, conducted by Peter Birch during WHX Dubai 2026, about the evolution and future of Electronic Health Records (EHRs). The podcast highlights how EHRs had transformed from being mere compliance tools into strategic assets for improving healthcare, enabling population health, and supporting research. Romel discussed the primary challenges in healthcare, such as clinician burnout and data silos, and outlined the necessary components for a modern EHR, including clean data, clinician-centric workflows, and interoperability. In addition, the conversation covered the critical role of a robust cloud infrastructure in enabling scalable and native AI solutions, the importance of governance in deploying new technologies, and the need for collaboration within the healthcare ecosystem. Romel concluded by advising healthcare leaders to adopt an agile, user-centric, and iterative approach to innovation.

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Episode transcript:

Peter Birch (00:07):

Welcome to WHX Insights. My name is Peter Birch. Today, I'm joined by Romel Khalife, country manager for UAE in Kuwait. Romel, so great to have you here on the show today.

Romel Khalife (00:17):

Good afternoon, Pete. The pleasure is mine. Thank you for hosting me.

Peter Birch (00:21):

It's great to have you here and talk about electronic health records, EHRs. It's a well-known tool, an acronym within healthcare. But over the years, I think there's been a fair bit of evolution and the landscape has changed. Perhaps you could set the scene for us. Tell us a bit about EHRs, what they are maybe, but where they've come from and where we are today.

Romel Khalife (00:42):

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. So over the past five to 10 years, there have been really that significant shift in the EHR market. EHR was often seeing more of a compliance tool or maybe a checkbox for digitalization. But nowadays, especially healthcare leaders in the Middle East, they really see that as a strategic asset. Strategic asset for what? For mainly transforming the healthcare landscape, also enabling population health, assisting in research, and mainly alignment with government initiatives when it comes to digital transformation and public health. So that shift today really happened from not anymore how to implement EHR, but really how to extract real and positive outcomes out of it.

Peter Birch (01:29):

Yeah. It's interesting, isn't it? I guess back in the day, one might see an EHR as this is where we put the information, where it's a repository of data and that's just good for record keeping. But what needs to happen? What does it need to do exactly in order for it to achieve those outcomes that you just outlined?

Romel Khalife (01:54):

Yeah. So allow me to cover here some of the healthcare challenges today. So 65% of clinician in the US, they feel burnout. If we talk about actionable data, 70% of that, it's due to not actionable data and not fully integrated. And if I would say the time that physicians spend at EHR, it's about 52%, which is really considerable. So back to your question, Pete, when it comes to evolving from a passive record, from a passive system of record to more a proactive decision support engine, three things need to be there. First of all, data. Data should be clean and standardized with a high quality for the system to trust it and to analyze it. The second one is really about workflows. Workflows need to be designed around clinicians, and that's essential for having the right decision at the right time at the point of care.

(03:04):

And finally, we talk about interoperable data. If you've seen previous discussion, they were mainly about data and big data. Now that shifted into more of how can I get the full picture, more interpretable data within my organization when it comes to healthcare, but also the surrounding data from the ecosystem where it comes to the back office and outside of that organization. And this is very essential to aggregate those data to complete the picture for clinicians and patients.

Peter Birch (03:38):

That last one, the interoperability, such an important point. We talk about it a lot, but I feel like interoperability is sometimes almost like renovating your house. It's almost like it's not like an end state. There's always something to do. And then it's a weird analogy, but I'm going to run with it because I think many health systems might struggle a little bit with being interoperable. How do you think about what, I guess, needs to happen or what interoperability when it's done looks like and what it might enable to really break down some of those data silos?

Romel Khalife (04:18):

Yeah. If you talk about interoperability, you talk about semantic interoperability. So that's structuring and mapping data consistently across systems. So this includes shared data platform and using open standards and putting incentives in place for those to enable those data and have it interoperable. So here you come the question about the AI data platform or the Oracle AIDP. It play a critical role where it connects, for example, generative AI model with data, workflow, and applications. And all of this in one single purpose, which is enabling more informed, timely patient care. So when you have such unified data foundation with that foundation basis, it supports the long-term patient population health outcome.

Peter Birch (05:20):

Yeah. It's like getting the plumbing right, ensuring that the data can move seamlessly in order for you to achieve something. The interoperability isn't the end state. It's kind of like it enables you to do something. And I feel like the something is, these days, we talk a lot about artificial intelligence, and you touched on that, the enabling the data in order to do, say, generative AI. How do you ... But like any innovation in healthcare, it can't just be a single solution. It's got to be scalable, it's got to be reliable and all of these things. What needs to be true? Or how do you enable, say, an AI solution in healthcare, but the one that is truly scalable and meets the clinician needs and workflows and things like that?

Romel Khalife (06:06):

Yeah. Great question, Pete. So before talking about scalability of the aisle, we need to speak about the underlying infrastructure that is really essential in this. So I think no one can deny today the power and the security and the performance that the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure bring into the picture, and that's essential today. So it really harness that power of innovation and artificial intelligence. So this is essential. It comply with local data regulations and also allow all of the healthcare providers today to be scalable. We know we live in a very agile environment where expansions are within the region, outside of the region, and this Oracle infrastructure bring this to the picture. So I spoke about the AI data platform. I spoke about the underlying technology with the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. So both together in conjunction, they really break down those silos and build rich longevity patient record.

(07:06):

We speak here and the leaders in the UAE speak about longevity, how to live longer but healthier. And this is all what's about the quality of life and not just treating symptoms as they arise. Now to answer your question, how we can scale this up, we really need to work from day one with the clinician and the operational leader, defining what's really my problem today. What's the problem I'm trying to solve? And is it like reducing documentation time? So all of this need to come with a context of a workflow. It need to come with delivering insights within the context. So this is key for those AI solution. They should not be as bolt-on. We see a lot today in the market, bolt-on solutions on top of EHRs, on top of ... They should be native so they can bring that value in a context of a patient and they can be deployed at scale once they are successful as a tested and validated real outcome.

Peter Birch (08:10):

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. Hey, earlier you rightfully pointed out this issue of clinician burnout in the US and across the world. And I feel like the modern EHR has a role to play to reduce that clinician burnout in order for it to be successful. We're continually needing to do more with less, but at higher quality. Sometimes a technology tool could be implemented and it may alleviate a particular stress or concern or a need in one part of the value chain, but it kind of just pushes the problem further down the road. How do you think about the role of the modern EHR in truly addressing some of those issues that create the clinician burnout and what needs to happen in order to enable that?

Romel Khalife (09:03):

Yeah, you said it right here. So basically we were solving a problem, but we were pushing that problem somewhere else. And now really with that next generation EHR, it's all about easiness of use, spending more time with the patient and removing that burden from those clinicians that they need to do what they do best, which is three things. So the next generation EHR has this AI-powered voice recognition, really. And this is what automate documentation. It has a much easier EHR and fully redesigned in a context of much efficient and more time saving with the patient. So if you take, for example, a clinical AI agent that usually this technology is embedded within the next generation HR, it saved tremendous time when it comes to the documentation..

(10:19):

. So I'll give some great examples about the next generation EHR that are really today roll out in the US. I would ask my EHR, "Can you pull me my appointments for the day? Can you, for example, get me what's the urgent item that need my attention now?" Sweet.

(10:55):

I can engage the assistant at any time to get informed data and search for that information. I can engage that assistant too, to get information for within the EHR when it comes to my visit or when it comes to my diagnosis where I want to see the full picture, a summarized picture. So there is a lot. I will not cover all of the functionalities. There is a lot to do, but all of this is very promising. It's in line with the challenges I highlighted at the beginning for our conversation, and it's all about how we can make it easier, smarter, and improve the healthcare of the population. Yeah.

Peter Birch (11:40):

And thinking about those, I guess, innovative tools or new ways to do things, those sound really promising, but we're in healthcare where any new emerging innovation quickly brings with it risk and compliance and governance and things that almost in the innovation world feel like it's trying to hold the innovation back. Where do you see the role of these important elements of governance and risk and compliance and the role they play? Because sometimes I feel like there's been innovators or clinicians or healthcare players that almost see those elements as impeding innovation or stopping the innovation, but how do we lean into some of those to ensure that those important elements don't slow down the innovation?

Romel Khalife (12:37):

Yeah. If I may think about it, we are always in that rush to deploy new tools, and we really need to establish that clear data stewardship, access control, and auditability. So this is why it's very important, and that's especially to have that governance framework to assess the security and the privacy obligation for all of those emerging AI technologies that's coming into the picture.

Peter Birch (13:08):

I think about Oracle Health, and Oracle Health is pretty big. So one might think you've got the capability to do a lot of things in healthcare, and I know that EHR is a critical component of that, but there's a lot of different facets of healthcare. And I think it's pretty clear that there's no one particular provider that's going to have all the different solutions that every clinical modality is going to need. How do you think about this need for collaboration and partnership and integration that I feel like is a necessity in this world of healthcare, while at the same time enabling that true seamless interoperability, seamless care. So from a patient's point of view, it doesn't matter who the provider of technology is. In the end, the care is delivered effectively.

Romel Khalife (13:57):

Yeah. So that successful collaboration, it really depend on that transparency, shared goal, and clear roles. So we see the best result when there's really that early alignment across stakeholders and standards and data governance and when regulators act as enablers. So joint innovation program, I think we spoke about interoperability and open APIs and public-private partnership that focus on real clinical problem have especially been effective in that area.

Peter Birch (14:27):

Yeah. Love that. Hey, lastly, Romel, you're speaking to a lot of healthcare leaders and decision makers, particularly in the UAE and across the region. What are the critical challenges they're trying to solve, or the types of conversations that you are having, and what would you hope that in their strategic forward-facing decisions, they're factoring in this ever evolving landscape of healthcare?

Romel Khalife (14:55):

Yeah, it's a key mindset change. Indeed. So if you think about it, they need to prioritize today agility and user centricity rather than aiming for one massive and flawless deployment where like we used to. So leaders, really they should in iterative and user-driven innovation, constantly engage clinician and patients, they need to ensure that transformation truly deliver on its promises to improve health outers. I feel we discuss about we have a problem to solve, and this is where it should be focused in an iterative way, we try it, we make it work, and then we scale it up. Thank you, Pete.

Peter Birch (15:41):

Oh, look, I really appreciate you making the time, Ramel. It's great to be able to hone in on, like you say, those problems to solve and how to effectively do innovation and hear about what that modern electronic health record looks like. So I really appreciate you making the time today.

Romel Khalife (15:56):

Yeah, I really appreciate too. I mean, this is a topic that is re-imagining healthcare is keen to our hearts, so it was a pleasure discussion. Thank you, Pete.

Peter Birch (16:05):

And thank you for joining us on WHX Insights. Make sure you subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube, so you can catch all the discussions here on the show. My name is Peter Birch. Thanks so much for joining.