Saudi Arabia is already living the future of healthcare

"Saudi Arabia is already operating the kind of connected, AI-enabled healthcare infrastructure many countries are still debating how to build. At FII9, the conversation was unmistakable. Global innovation momentum is shifting toward the Middle East, and nowhere more than Saudi Arabia, where national digital platforms like Sehhaty already give millions of residents unified access to their health data. At the Global Health Exhibition, I saw population-level analytics, AI-powered diagnostics, multiomic initiatives, and interoperable infrastructure deployed at a speed and scale that would take years in other countries."

"LIFESTYLE DRIVES OUTCOMES, BUT REMAINS CLINICALLY INVISIBLE Studies show that lifestyle and environmental factors account for more than 80% of health outcomes. A healthy lifestyle can prevent the vast majority of chronic diseases, including heart disease and diabetes. And yet, the data that reflects how people actually live, how they eat, move, sleep, and manage stress, remains largely absent from clinical care."

"In the United States, for example, healthcare is not suffering from a data shortage. It's drowning in data. Every day, people generate powerful information through wearables, continuous glucose monitors, fitness and sleep apps, and smart rings. As of 2023, nearly one in three Americans use a wearable to track their health, according to a Health Information National Trends Survey. These tools capture meaningful lifestyle signals that directly affect clinical outcomes. Yet almost none of this data reaches the exam room. It remains siloed on consumer platforms, invisible to clinicians, and unusable in medical decision making."

Saudi Arabia has deployed connected, AI-enabled healthcare infrastructure at national scale, including platforms like Sehhaty that give millions unified access to health data, plus population-level analytics, AI diagnostics, multiomic efforts, and interoperable systems. Lifestyle and environmental factors drive over 80% of health outcomes, and healthy behaviors can prevent most chronic diseases, yet lifestyle data remains largely absent from clinical care. In countries such as the United States, consumers generate abundant wearable and app data, but that information is siloed on consumer platforms, invisible to clinicians, and therefore unusable for medical decision making and preventive care.

Read at Fast Company