Burjeel Holdings launches BEACON to integrate emergency, acute care

Burjeel Holdings has launched BEACON, the Burjeel Emergency and Acute Care Operational Network.

Launched simultaneously at Burjeel Hospital Abu Dhabi and Burjeel Medical City, the integrated framework connects emergency, critical care, and interfacility transfers into a single, coordinated model across Abu Dhabi facilities.

BEACON is designed to ensure that wherever patients first enter the Burjeel network, they can be rapidly connected to the right expertise and the most appropriate level of care. From the initial response and emergency assessment to specialist intervention, critical care, transfer, recovery, and follow-up, the model brings different elements of the patient journey together through shared clinical pathways and coordinated decision-making.

BEACON establishes a common framework for emergency and acute care. Rather than treating the Emergency Department as an isolated point of care, the model connects the patient with the wider capabilities of the network based on clinical need. This includes access to specialist and subspecialist teams, intensive care, diagnostics, inpatient services, and advanced treatment capabilities across the two hospitals.

The framework is built around four key areas: acute care access, Emergency Department quality and value, integration between the Emergency Department and the wider hospital, and interfacility transfer and prehospital integration. It also strengthens subspecialty routing, standardised clinical protocols, and technology-enabled clinical decision support.

“When a patient faces an emergency, the strength of our entire healthcare network should be available to them. BEACON brings our people, expertise, infrastructure, and capabilities together around the patient, enabling our teams to respond in a more coordinated and consistent way. Our focus is to connect every patient to the right expertise and level of care when it matters most, while maintaining the highest standards of quality, safety, and patient experience,” said Dr. Shamsheer Vayalil, Chairman and CEO of Burjeel Holdings.

By bringing emergency, diagnostic, specialist, and inpatient teams together, BEACON helps reduce unnecessary delays and repeated assessments.

Depending on the patient’s condition, emergency physicians can involve specialists in cardiology, neurology, oncology, maternal-fetal medicine, intensive care, surgery, pediatrics, and other disciplines from an early stage in the care process.

Patients requiring capabilities available at another site can be transferred through coordinated clinical pathways, with the relevant teams involved in decision-making before and during the transfer. This helps patients reach the right specialist care within the Burjeel network more quickly and supports continuity between facilities.

“Emergency care does not begin or end at the doors of the Emergency Department. A patient may need prehospital support, rapid diagnostics, specialist intervention, critical care, or transfer to another facility, often within a very short period of time. BEACON gives our teams a common framework to coordinate these decisions and act as one clinical network. This helps us bring the appropriate expertise to the patient earlier and maintain a consistent standard throughout the care journey,” said Dr. Malcolm Borg, Consultant and Group Head, Emergency Medicine.

BEACON supports both common emergencies and complex, time-sensitive conditions through standardised pathways across cardiac emergencies, stroke, sepsis, trauma, paediatrics, and acute oncology, while also enabling access to highly specialised and quaternary care across the network.

Technology support will improve visibility of clinical capacity and specialist availability across participating facilities, helping teams make informed decisions about where patients should receive care.

The framework also includes the progressive use of clinical decision support and predictive tools to help identify high-risk patients earlier, support acute care navigation, and monitor key quality indicators. Clinician oversight remains central to all technology-enabled decision-making.