United Arab Emirates: Sodexo Middle East, a leading provider of services aimed at improving the quality of life, is committed to meeting the diverse market needs of the region’s healthcare sector by offering a diverse range of innovative services to hospitals and healthcare institutions.
Sodexo also works to enhance patient comfort and safety, provide health support, and enable efficient and smooth operations in healthcare sites in the United Arab Emirates, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.
In the Middle East, the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic (Covid-19) led to an escalation of the trend of touchless food ordering services in 2020, with Saudi Arabia ranked first in the region in this regard with a growth rate of 170% in the food delivery sector , followed by the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar.
In turn, the increasing demand for solutions for remote food ordering services is reflected in the healthcare sector.
With this in mind, Sodexo Middle East has utilized its modern services in the field to distribute more than 4,300 daily meals to hospital patients, more than 4,500 daily meals to medical staff and 1,800 daily meals to visitors within a total area of 60,000 square feet.
In response to the growing demand in early 2021, Sodexo Middle East launched its digital food ordering technology called “One Click”.
It is an easy-to-use electronic food ordering application that enables medical staff and visitors to order healthy meals simply with a click of a button; this limits common points of contact and reduces the risk of spreading infection by limiting physical contact.
One Click’s user-friendly interface provides employees and visitors with a single platform that meets all their hospital dining needs.
The interface offers nutritional information on each meal, discounts and promotions on meals, live status updates, and convenient and secure payment options.
The self-ordering tool also allows medical staff to browse through healthy and rich menus, which improves employee satisfaction levels in hospitals.
Also, visitors to hospitals can enjoy delicious meals from patients’ rooms and cater to their loved ones.
In a move to enhance patient experiences, the leading quality of life services company has launched a state-of-the-art catering solution for hospital patients called Touch to Order (T2O).
The in-house food ordering system enhances patient satisfaction levels by transmitting patients’ electronic medical history and dietary restrictions directly to the kitchen that combines users’ food preferences to create nutritious meals.
Touch to order technology provides patients with comprehensive nutritional details highlighting the number of calories consumed at each meal, as well as automatically syncing patients’ preferences in online and offline modes.
The system increases patient awareness by enabling users to manage their own tastes and preferences in a healthy way, while presenting visually enticing menus that enable patients to order meals from hospital wards and rooms.
The Touch to Order solution improves the operational efficiencies of healthcare organizations by eliminating tedious paperwork and reducing the cost of managing hospital food services.
In this context, Rachid Njeim, CEO of Sodexo Middle East, commented: “By using self-improvement systems, we were able to enhance the experiences of hospital patients and visitors across our operational sites. Education and healthcare in the UAE is a huge success as the overall user experience has been very positive. We look forward to expanding our operations to other locations across the Middle East and the UAE in the coming months. At Sodexo, we strive to improve and adapt our services to changing market demands through Investing in new technologies such as artificial intelligence, and we believe that the Middle East market is ready to embrace the uses of artificial intelligence to support related healthcare needs.”
AI and robotics technology have proven to be a sustainable solution to enhance logistics and medical requirements across the sector.
In 2017, the UAE government launched the “Emirates Artificial Intelligence Strategy”, an ambitious strategy that aims to implement the uses of artificial intelligence in various fields, including the healthcare sector.
The Quality of Life Services Company passionately supports the implementation of AI across its services, and in the third quarter of 2021, it launched the AI-based Food Waste Prevention Program (WWXLP) under the name of “waste Watch” and powered by Leanpath solutions across 41 operational locations in the healthcare and corporate sectors, Energy, resources and defense in the region.
Since September 2021, this special technology has been used to reduce food waste at 20 operational sites in Qatar, saving 2,441 kg of food waste, equivalent to 4,484 meals.
Sodexo Middle East is looking to enhance and support the needs of the healthcare sector by implementing artificial intelligence systems and robotics across the quality of life services it provides in the Middle East.
About Sodexo Middle East
Sodexo Middle East is headquartered in Dubai Silicon Oasis and since 1974 has been providing services that improve the quality of life in the UAE and the region. 7,500 employees work in 400 Sodexo locations across the Middle East, serving 100,000 consumers every day. Over the past 45 years, our teams have grown to provide services ranging from catering, reception, cleaning, construction management, asset maintenance, security and floor maintenance to our clients in offices, schools, hospitals, military bases and remote locations.
About Sodexo
Sodexo, founded in Marseille in 1966 by Pierre Bellon, is a global leader in providing services aimed at improving the quality of life, which is the main factor in improving individual and organizational performance.
Sodexo operates in 64 countries and serves 100 million consumers daily through a unique combination of on-site services, benefits and rewards, as well as individual and home services.
Sodexo has more than 50 years of experience which is evident in its integrated offerings that include Catering, Concierge, Maintenance, Cleaning, Facility and Equipment Management.
The company also provides customers with various services, from programs and services that enhance employee participation in work, and solutions to facilitate and improve their mobility and manage their expenses, to home help services, child care centers and building guard services.
Sodexo’s success and high performance are based on its independence, sustainable business model, and continued ability to grow and engage its 420,000 employees worldwide. It should be noted that Sodexo is included in the CAC Next 20, ESG 80, FTSE 4 Good and DJSI indices.
