Whereas touring to Riyadh for the Fortune World Discussion board, FII9, and the World Well being Exhibition, I witnessed one thing that must be a wake-up name for well being techniques in every single place. Saudi Arabia is already working the type of linked, AI-enabled healthcare infrastructure many international locations are nonetheless debating easy methods to construct. At FII9, the dialog was unmistakable. World innovation momentum is shifting towards the Center East, and nowhere greater than Saudi Arabia, the place nationwide digital platforms like Sehhaty already give thousands and thousands of residents unified entry to their well being information. On the World Well being Exhibition, I noticed population-level analytics, AI-powered diagnostics, multiomic initiatives, and interoperable infrastructure deployed at a velocity and scale that might take years in different international locations. It made one thing clear: Healthcare doesn’t have a knowledge downside. We have now a connection downside.
LIFESTYLE DRIVES OUTCOMES, BUT REMAINS CLINICALLY INVISIBLE
Studies present that way of life and environmental elements account for greater than 80% of well being outcomes. A wholesome way of life can stop the overwhelming majority of persistent illnesses, together with coronary heart illness and diabetes. And but, the info that displays how folks truly stay, how they eat, transfer, sleep, and handle stress, stays largely absent from medical care.
In the USA, for instance, healthcare is just not affected by a knowledge scarcity. It’s drowning in information. Every single day, folks generate highly effective data by means of wearables, steady glucose screens, health and sleep apps, and sensible rings. As of 2023, almost one in three People use a wearable to trace their well being, based on a Health Information National Trends Survey. These instruments seize significant way of life indicators that straight have an effect on medical outcomes. But nearly none of this information reaches the examination room. It stays siloed on client platforms, invisible to clinicians, and unusable in medical determination making.
This disconnect has penalties. Preventive alternatives are missed. Continual circumstances go unmanaged. Healthcare stays reactive as an alternative of proactive. Clinicians depend on structured snapshots like lab outcomes and prescriptions, necessary, however incomplete, as a result of they seize what occurs within the clinic slightly than day by day life.
AI AS THE BRIDGE BETWEEN LIFESTYLE DATA AND CLINICAL CARE
It’s not that clinicians are bored with wearable information. Many are keen. Remote patient monitoring has grown quickly, with a 1,300% enhance in associated procedures between 2019 and 2022. Nonetheless, the friction factors are actual. Knowledge safety is a priority. Machine accuracy varies. Practices usually lack the IT infrastructure to onboard new instruments, practice employees, and combine a number of information streams. Most significantly, clinicians are overwhelmed. Extra uncooked information is just not the answer.
That is why healthcare techniques want a bridge that makes way of life information usable, dependable, and secure in medical settings. That bridge is clinical-grade AI. When way of life and longitudinal behavioral datasets are used at inference time through retrieval, AI’s outputs are grounded in real-world indicators slightly than summary reasoning alone, distilling solely probably the most related insights for the purpose of care. The purpose is just not one other dashboard, however significant indicators embedded inside present workflows that cut back burden slightly than enhance it. With the appropriate instruments, AI additionally empowers sufferers. Customized, real-time steering rooted in their very own physiology helps them perceive their information, make higher choices, and keep aligned with their care plan.
A NATIONAL DIGITAL HEALTH INFRASTRUCTURE
International locations akin to Saudi Arabia are demonstrating what occurs when medical and systems-level information come collectively. The unified nationwide well being platform Sehhaty serves as an entry level for thousands and thousands of residents and affords built-in providers far past scheduling. These embody safe medical data, on-line prescriptions, lab outcomes, vaccination historical past, teleconsultations, and distant monitoring. The app reportedly incorporates 31 million unified well being information, representing almost 88% of the inhabitants, and 140 million on-line prescriptions.
On the middle of this transformation is the Seha Digital Hospital, which delivers distant specialist care throughout 224 hospitals and dozens of specialties, together with critical-care consults and AI-driven diagnostics. Investments in genomics, proteomics, metabolomics, and superior AI at establishments akin to King Faisal Specialist Hospital rival these of a number of the finest packages in the USA. The result’s a coordinated mannequin of nationwide digital well being integration, one thing lengthy envisioned however not but achieved.
TO BUILD THE FUTURE OF HEALTH, CONNECT THE DOTS
America has the gadgets and information, however has lengthy lacked the infrastructure and incentives to attach them meaningfully. That’s starting to shift. Current CMS initiatives sign recognition that prevention, way of life information, and technology-enabled care should play a bigger function in how well being outcomes are measured and reimbursed. Initiatives akin to MAHA ELEVATE and the CMS ACCESS Model mirror a rising shift towards prevention-first, lifestyle-driven care. MAHA ELEVATE helps Medicare pilot packages that take a look at whether or not whole-person, lifestyle-based care can enhance well being outcomes and decrease prices, whereas ACCESS helps carry these approaches to scale by means of new care supply and outcome-based cost fashions. In parallel, CMS Aligned Networks is specializing in enhancing interoperability and coordination throughout the healthcare ecosystem, creating requirements and incentives that permit information to maneuver safely between sufferers, suppliers, and care groups. The chance is to make sure that way of life information are handled as important medical data and that AI interprets complexity into actionable perception on the level of care.
Essentially the most worthwhile well being information we possess is already being captured on our wrists, in our pockets, and all through our day by day routines. The problem is not assortment. It’s connection. To shut the hole, we should deal with way of life information as important medical data and never a client novelty. Interoperable techniques should permit this data to maneuver securely to the appropriate stakeholders, with AI surfacing well timed, related indicators that assist determination making with out including friction for clinicians or sufferers.
Solely then can healthcare transfer from fragmented snapshots to steady understanding, from episodic and reactive care to a mannequin that anticipates threat, promotes wholesome behaviors, and helps the entire individual. The way forward for healthcare is already taking form in locations akin to Riyadh, the place imaginative and prescient, infrastructure, and execution are aligned. Different international locations, together with the USA, can get there too, however provided that we join the dots.
Noosheen Hashemi is founder and CEO of January AI.
