08/19/2026
No one lost in between: how American Hospital Dubai rebuilt its gastroenterology patient journey
Stomach pain that strikes with no warning. Symptoms too private to describe out loud, even to a doctor. For many patients, the road to a gastrointestinal (GI) diagnosis starts in a kind of nervous silence, made even longer by canceled procedures, confusing prep instructions, and follow-up calls that never come. At American Hospital Dubai (AHD), filling that silence became the work of an entire department.
American Hospital Dubai, a premium private healthcare provider in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), is home to one of the region’s busiest gastroenterology departments. Led by Dr. Muhammad Toqeer, the department treats about 700 inpatients and 6,500 outpatients a year, a quarter of them traveling in from elsewhere in the UAE and one in ten from a different country. A Mayo Clinic Care Network member since 2016 and the first member in the Middle East region, AHD already had the clinical talent, international faculty and advanced endoscopy capability many hospitals spend decades building. What they wanted next was harder to measure but easy for patients to feel: fewer delays, clearer instructions, timely answers and a consistent point of contact from the first phone call through follow-up. AHD’s ambition was for its GI program to further its status as a regional center of excellence, known not only for who was treating patients but also for how patients felt as they moved through care.
What came next was turning that standard into practice. Standardized workflows and SOPs now guide clinic visits, so a patient’s experience no longer depends on which day they come in or who’s on shift. New quality indicators track cecal intubation rate, prep adequacy, withdrawal time and Endoscopic Retrograde Cholangiopancreatography (ERCP) outcomes, with ERCP quality monitoring alone covering four to five cases a month. An RN Red Flags Pre-Procedure Assessment strengthens sedation safety and governance, catching a patient’s risk factors before sedation instead of relying on memory. Two new GI coordinators manage communication, including a 72-hour outreach workflow that catches prep issues before they become a canceled procedure. A new phase of digital enablement is underway, bringing automated KPIs, delay tracking and dashboards, so slowdowns get caught before they become a canceled appointment or unanswered call. Endoscopy turnaround time has improved from roughly 20 minutes to 12.4 minutes, matching Mayo Clinic’s own benchmark, meaning patients spend less time waiting between stages of care. Procedure wait time has dropped to under 7 days, meeting AHD’s goal and helping worried patients move more quickly toward answers, treatment and relief. Also, more patients are staying connected to their care after a procedure too, a direct improvement on that early 60% lost-to-follow-up rate. For a patient today, these improvements show up in small ways: a shorter wait after an endoscopy, a prep reminder that arrives 72 hours ahead, a coordinator who calls back. For a patient managing a private GI issue, they’re the difference between a lonely silence and a supportive presence.
GI symptoms are hard enough to live with without also feeling lost in the system meant to treat them. At American Hospital Dubai, that isolating, uncertain feeling that GI patients have is being replaced by a feeling of support and clarity—one patient, one appointment, one follow-up call at a time.
Living up to that ambition meant AHD taking an honest look at its own blind spots, especially moments a patient might never mention out loud. Insurance approval delays sometimes meant rescheduling a procedure a patient had finally worked up the nerve for. Confusing prep instructions meant patients occasionally arrived under-prepared and had to start the whole process over again. Sedation capacity, tied closely to anesthesiology availability, left some patients with fewer scheduling options. Gaps between a procedure and communication afterwards meant a new symptom could go unanswered, part of why roughly 60% of patients were lost to follow-up. Patient satisfaction was trailing the regional benchmark, but behind each issue was a specific, fixable cause.
Solving for those causes meant rebuilding the patient journey with the same rigor that Mayo Clinic applies to its own—making each step easier, clearer and more reassuring for the person receiving care. In April 2025, Mayo Clinic’s Gastroenterology Department and Mayo Clinic Global Consulting team conducted an onsite evaluation at AHD, resulting in a full clinical assessment and recommendations report. Over five to six months, AHD and Mayo Clinic teams held 22 structured working sessions online, built around making each step easier for the patient. The work drew on Mayo Clinic Care Network resources, including Mayo Clinic’s best-practice workflow and standard operating procedure (SOP) frameworks, its Quality Academy, and joint Morbidity and Mortality and Complex Case Review sessions. Four AHD delegates, including Dr. Walid Karaoui, then spent a week at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, following a GI patient’s full path from intake through follow-up, with a stop at Mayo Clinic Health System in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. The visit gave AHD’s team a practical view of how consistent communication, coordinated handoffs and clear follow-up can shape a patient’s experience. They no longer had to imagine the journey they wanted to create in Dubai. They had seen it in action.
For Princess Bianzon-Balan, Nurse Manager for Endoscopy in AHD’s Gastroenterology Services, that shift is the result of a broader change in how her team works. “It has been a privilege to contribute to the GI optimization initiative in collaboration with the Mayo Clinic Care Network,” she says. “We have gained valuable insights from Mayo Clinic to optimize workflows, improve operational efficiency, reduce delays, and enhance the overall patient experience. By leveraging data-driven decision-making and multidisciplinary collaboration, we continue to strengthen the delivery of safe, high-quality, patient-centered care while building a sustainable foundation for ongoing innovation and organizational excellence.”
As AHD’s patient base grows, a stronger foundation means more patients can count on their care being tracked, followed up on and improved. Patient satisfaction is climbing, with survey scores rising from 96 to 98% and increasing response rates. Consistent quality and safety monitoring is part of why AHD can now take on more complex, higher-risk procedures. That foundation is driving AHD toward greater subspecialization in third space endoscopy, complex endoscopic ultrasound and hepatobiliary procedures, with plans underway for a dedicated motility centre to serve patients with complex functional and intestinal disorders. The collaboration with Mayo Clinic continues into 2026, with quarterly leadership, nursing and operations sessions keeping the momentum going, helping AHD sustain improvements that patients can feel.
Learn more about the Mayo Clinic Care Network: https://www.mayoclinic.org/about-mayo-clinic/care-network/amplified-expertise?mc_id=international&utm_source=mayoclinicorg&utm_medium=sm&utm_content=mccnsuccessstoryint&utm_campaign=mayoclinic&geo=global&placementsite=enterprise&invsrc=consult&cauid=197623
