Every startup has an origin story. Ours has three. Three separate experiences — a missed diagnosis, a medication error and a hospital that couldn't find a patient's file — that led us to conclude that the fragmentation of health records across the GCC is not just an inconvenience. It is a patient safety problem that costs people their health and sometimes their lives.
The missed diagnosis
A family member underwent blood tests at a clinic in Dubai. The results showed a marker that, in isolation, looked borderline. In the context of a previous result from a different clinic six months earlier — where the same marker had been elevated — the trend would have prompted immediate follow-up. The context didn't exist. The follow-up didn't happen for eight more months.
By then, a treatable condition had progressed. The diagnosis was made. The treatment was effective. But those eight months cost something.
The medication error
A friend was prescribed a medication by a specialist who didn't know that their GP had prescribed a drug with a significant interaction three weeks earlier. The specialist had no access to the GP's records. The friend didn't think to mention it. The pharmacy dispensed both. The interaction was caught — by the friend, not a professional — when they read the drug information leaflet.
What we decided to build
Patient-held, verified, portable records. The idea is simple: patients carry their own health data, and they share it with whoever needs to see it. Healthcare providers issue verified documents into the patient's account rather than keeping them in an institutional silo. The patient is the connective tissue between every provider they see.
Simple to describe. Hard to build well. We've spent two years getting it right. We believe we have. This is Looms.