Innovation can help Gulf states meet healthcare challenges

With the annual Arab Health congress for this year opening on Monday, here in the UAE, there is increased international debate about the future of health care in the Arabian Gulf countries. Will it meet its challenges and can it fully leverage its opportunities?

In many respects, the Gulf countries’ healthcare challenges and opportunities are the same as those shared around the world – rising populations, rising costs and rising patient expectations, all coupled with a shifting, global cultural mindset increasingly accepting of the idea that the only sustainable way forward for health care, anywhere in the world, is to move from sick care to well care – or preventive care.

But there is one central, and very promising, difference here in the region: the demonstrated commitment of the Gulf states’ leaders to innovate in the delivery of patient care.

That high-level commitment to innovation and continuous improvement is critical to success because health care is all about patients and caregivers, with the patient at the centre of the experience.

As a medical doctor and chief executive who has been active in the delivery of world-class health care for more than 50 years, I can attest to the fact that innovation is the single greatest driver of improved patient outcomes. Improvements come only with changes in the way we do things.

The first key innovation is prevention, educating Gulf residents to take more responsibility for their own well-being. The only thing we can do to reduce costs, while still improving quality, is to reduce the burden of disease.

In the US, nearly half of premature deaths are caused by obesity, inactivity and smoking. Here in the Gulf, the numbers are even higher but equally preventable, and already the Gulf is making progress in addressing its obesity epidemic, thanks in large part to its leadership.

Next, Gulf states are looking more closely at value for the healthcare dollar, dirham, riyal or dinar spent. It is now widely agreed that low costs don’t necessarily equate to great outcomes or great quality.

Again, healthcare delivery in the Gulf is not only becoming more patient-centric, and thus improved, it is becoming more outcomes-focused and more committed to transparency. Gulf states are spending more wisely and patients are benefiting from this more intelligent approach to cost optimisation.

Inally, innovation in patient experience is crucial to the success of the Gulf’s healthcare sector. That experience has a physical, clinical, and emotional component.

The Gulf is making great strides in addressing its levels of care and it should continue to look for ways to improve the quality of the patient experience because patients expect it, and it presents a real opportunity to improve their emotional well-being, which clearly has an influence on the speed of their recovery.

The good people of the Gulf deserve the very best health care the world has to offer and, with the support of their leaders, they will continue to receive it. What is important is that their caregivers be as committed to innovation in its delivery as their leaders are to directing it.

Delos Cosgrove, MD, is president and chief executive of Cleveland Clinic in the United States; Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi is the company’s first hospital outside North America.