The Wellness Collective
Back to storiesHealth and Tech

Trellis Health on why connected care matters

Imagine seeing a breast surgeon, having a mammogram and an ultrasound, and returning to the surgeon, all in one visit. That’s the kind of joined-up care Dr. Dania Alsammarae is building at Trellis Health, the new healthcare group backed by the Al Ghurair family.

Dr. Dania, who co-founded Anglo Arabian Healthcare, has spent years working in UAE healthcare. Now, as Chief Executive Officer at Trellis Health, they’re focused on what the group calls “Connected Caring”: doctors, nurses and specialists working as one team around each patient. We spoke to Dr. Dania about why integrated care is the future, what’s new in women’s health at Trellis, and why their smartwatch keeps them honest about rest.

By Rebeca Pop, Editor at The Wellness Collective|
Trellis Health on why connected care matters

1. You've worked in UAE healthcare for a while, including co-founding Anglo Arabian Healthcare. What drew you to Trellis Health?

The chance to build something meaningful with the Al Ghurair family. They've built businesses here across many industries, and they genuinely want what's best for the community. This is a long-term commitment for them, and in healthcare that matters.

Healthcare is an altruistic field, so you want to work with people who care about quality and service as much as you do. They're always asking me about the patient experience: are patients getting the care they need, and is everything running smoothly? Building something that makes a difference, with like-minded people who share those values, is what makes it worthwhile for me.

2. Is integrated care the future?Is integrated care the future?

Absolutely. Friends often call me about their parents, who are seeing several doctors and taking several medications. As we get older and manage more conditions, it matters more and more that everyone caring for you is working together and knows what the others are doing.

That's why Trellis Health is multidisciplinary by design. Lead physicians head each specialty, each with their own area of focus. Right now we're building our orthopaedic team, with dedicated surgeons for the upper limbs, the lower limbs and the spine. Each brings deep experience in their field, and they work as one team.

3. Can that work across specialties, for example if a patient comes in with several issues?

Exactly. Take Dr Alex, our bariatric surgeon. Before bariatric surgery, a patient may need to see a dietitian, an endocrinologist and a gastroenterologist, because other conditions often need to be addressed first. That's already working very well here at Trellis Hospital, and it's the model we'll follow across the network.

4. You've been working on this project from the very beginning. What are you most looking forward to now?

Delivering what we said we would, and doing it excellently. I want Trellis Health to be the place people talk about and recommend, whether for surgery, physiotherapy or whatever they need.

5. "Connected Caring" is the main message. How does that impact the patient in practice?

For the patient, Connected Caring means one team around you. Your doctors, nurses and specialists work together, across our hospital and clinics, with your needs at the centre. It means experts who put you first, a simpler experience, with smart technology making care easier to access and navigate, and care that continues beyond a single visit.

What makes it real is the backing behind it. Trellis Health is backed by Al Ghurair, a family business that puts quality of service first, and that focus runs right through the organisation. We're a young healthcare group, but we have access to talent and expertise built across Al Ghurair over decades. That means we can make sure everything behind Connected Caring is done properly. That's where a good idea becomes better care.

6. What is the most exciting development in women's health and wellness at Trellis?

We're developing a dedicated breast care centre, designed around convenience. In one controlled-access area, a patient can see the breast surgeon, have a mammogram and ultrasound, and return to the surgeon, all in a single visit.

Our obstetrics team works the same way as orthopaedics, with each obstetrician bringing their own focus. We're also bringing in a gynaecologist who specialises in perimenopause, menopause and hormone health.

The UAE's population is more settled now. People are staying longer and growing older here, so the need for more complex care keeps growing. Having that expertise in-house makes more and more sense, and it helps our whole team, physicians and nurses alike, keep developing their skills.

7. On a personal level, what does wellness look like for you in a week?

I'm part of the smartwatch generation. I check my sleep score, my steps, even how stressed my watch tells me I am. We're all more aware now of how we treat ourselves.

In your 20s you can pull an all-nighter and still function the next day. Then you reach an age where that no longer works, and you realise you need to look after all of yourself. There's no quick fix. It's about stepping back and making sure we're not doing anything to ourselves that can't be undone.

Related reading

Your Hormones, Your Life: Why Hormonal Mapping Matters More Than You Think
Health and Tech

Your Hormones, Your Life: Why Hormonal Mapping Matters More Than You Think

We tend to think of hormones as something that only matters at certain milestones: puberty, pregnancy, menopause, or a dip in testosterone later in life. In reality, they shape far more of our everyday lives than most of us realize, whether we’re women or men. Our energy, mood, sleep, focus, libido, and even the decisions we make and the way we show up in our relationships are all influenced by the hormones moving through our bodies. That persistent fatigue, the brain fog, the irritability that seems to come out of nowhere: these can all be signals from a system that’s out of balance.

Yet the standard approach often relies on a single blood test, taken at a single moment, that can miss the bigger picture. Hormonal mapping offers a different lens. Rather than a one-off snapshot, it looks at how hormones shift over time and across different stages of life, and how they interact with everything from stress and gut health to the environment we live in.

That’s where functional medicine comes in. Its starting point is simple but powerful: the body isn’t a collection of separate parts, but an interconnected system. Stress glands talk to reproductive hormones, chronic stress can quietly drain testosterone in both men and women, and what’s happening in your home or your gut can show up in how you feel day to day. Instead of treating symptoms in isolation, the goal is to find the root cause.

We sat down with Dr. Wajdi, who combines functional precision medicine, regenerative medicine, and conventional care, to talk about what hormonal mapping really involves, why life in a fast-paced city like Dubai can take a toll, and how understanding our hormones, and our partner’s, might even help save our relationships.

The Dentist Who Redesigned the Chair: Dr. Yasmin Kottait on Treating Children of Determination
Health and Tech

The Dentist Who Redesigned the Chair: Dr. Yasmin Kottait on Treating Children of Determination

For many parents of children of determination, a routine dental visit can feel like anything but routine. Bright lights, unfamiliar sounds, and the sensation of hands in a child's mouth can turn a simple checkup into a source of genuine distress, both for the child and the parent watching them struggle. Dr. Yasmin Kottait, a specialist pediatric dentist and certified Autism Specialist through IBCCES, has built her entire practice around changing that experience from the ground up, from the questionnaire families fill out before they even walk through the door, to the language she uses in the chair, to a clear stop signal every child knows will be respected. We spoke with Dr. Kottait about how her training in autism care and cognitive based hypnotherapy shaped her clinic, what a sensory-friendly visit actually looks like in practice, and the moment with one non-verbal patient that changed how she measures success as a dentist.