Saudi Arabia is among the countries most enthusiastic about building capacity and innovation with a view to improving the citizens lives. General Electric (GE) on its part has made a special budgetary allocation for innovating ideas aimed at developing the Saudi health care sector, Majid Kaddoumi, country general manger of General Electric El Seif, Healthcare Arabian Co. Ltd., told Diana Al-Jassem of Arab News in an interview.
Kaddoumi highlighted the need to boost health care infrastructure, telecommunication, construction, hospitality and financial services. To actualize GE s vision, Kaddoumi called for more support from various authorities. He also emphasized the need for cooperation with the private sector in order to put the health sector in line with global perceptions.
What is GE's vision for developing innovations that focus on reducing health care costs, and improving quality and efficiency in the health sector at the Kingdom and elsewhere in the Middle East?
In Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, GE Healthcare focuses on addressing two critical challenges - the increasing incidence of lifestyle diseases and a rise in healthcare bills. Through our global healthymagination initiative $6 billion global investment, which was also launched in Saudi Arabia in 2010, GE has made a commitment to improve quality, increase access and reduce cost of health care with the development of new innovations, health care IT and partnerships by 2015.
Shaping a new age of health care in the Kingdom is considered a challenge especially in terms of science, technology, business, and people. What are GE's plans for boosting new health care strategy? What is the expected budget to implement GE's new plan?
In regards to our plans for boosting the health care strategy in the Kingdom, GE Healthcare's business and plans for growth in Saudi Arabia are among the biggest in the region. We see and share Saudi Arabia's vision for 2020 and are working together to implement the ninth development plan. We are actively working to help the government support several goals. To develop health care services in the Kingdom, GE followed several major steps like:
GE Healthcare's joint venture with El Seif Development, called GE El Seif Healthcare Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the joint venture employs more than 200 skilled professionals, representing almost a quarter of GE's total workforce in the Kingdom and growing strong.
Providing advanced medical technologies and experienced manpower to support the health care management programs of the Ministry of Health in the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah during Haj 2011, GE Healthcare launched the cyber Field Engineer Tele-Service - a first in Saudi Arabia.
We are continuously evaluating opportunities to drive investments in the health care sector.
Economic diversity and the development of human resources are two main strong elements that the Kingdom is pursuing. What is GE's contribution to upgrade standards of technical and vocational education in the Kingdom?
A central pillar of GE Healthcare's localization strategy is its contribution toward building the competencies of Saudi health care professionals through education, training and development. In partnership with the Ministry of Health, GE Healthcare has provided professional training in clinical, technical as well as leadership programs and courses to over 1,300 Saudi professionals since April 2009. Over time we are confident that these and other trainings will help to build a more sustainable and strategic health care sector in the Kingdom and help reduce reliance on foreign talent.
The government is investing a large portion of its annual GDP in health care, such as building hospitals, technology and information, health care clinics and medical technology in to Saudi Arabia. In addition, 90 percent of hospitals and medical centers in the Kingdom are cooperating with GE Healthcare in order to develop health services. What is the joint plan of GE Healthcare and the Ministry of Health in terms of developing health services during the coming five years? And what is budget allocated for such projects?
Working in partnership with the Ministry of Health is our main plan for the coming five years. To do that successfully, GE Healthcare has introduced programs aimed at improving the provision of health services in the Kingdom. These programs include:
The establishment of three local service support centers - in Riyadh, Jeddah and Dammam - that has led to an improved speed of response to our customers, strongly supported by experienced local service and technical support teams.
. In line with the ministry's focus, which is "Patient First," we have a program for optimizing hospital performance that has helped transform the operating rooms of eight MoH hospitals and six National Guard Health Affairs Departments through tools and methodologies aimed at enhancing operational efficiencies.
"Healthymagination" is an annotative idea that GE Healthcare is working on with Ministry of Health, what is the main goal of this initiative and how it serves health care sector in the Kingdom?
In Saudi Arabia, GE's Healthymagination initiative is best exemplified by the breast cancer screening program being implemented by the Ministry of Health with the support of various public and private sector partners and NGOs, including King Fahd Medical City, Saudi Cancer Society, GE and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. The program focuses on increasing the awareness of breast cancer on early diagnosis, encouraging women to undertake screening through easy access, advanced digital mammography and timely after-care. The Ministry of Health has deployed three GE Healthymagination mobile clinics featuring trained female radiographers and other support staff to undertake the screening program. GE has also launched a $ 100 million Open Innovation Challenge globally to find and fund ideas to accelerate the detection of breast cancer. Other mobile clinics also will be established in the Kingdom to boost health care service as regards breast cancer. These clinics will be just like for those for breast cancer but will detect other diseases as well.
What are the latest programs that GE Healthcare is producing to develop IT in health sector. Is there any further plan to establish e-service that facilitates customer's access to hospitals?
With a focus on connecting the health care system through clinical information exchange, GE Healthcare offers Healthcare IT solutions aimed at providing standards and certification to enable connected care, particularly critical for the residents in remote areas. An example of this in Saudi Arabia is through the Breast Cancer Screening program, where GE will work with the Ministry of Health in deploying a dedicated breast cancer solution that will help the Ministry's radiographers to read images, update and archive, thus serving as a breast cancer-screening hub.
How economic sectors, do you believe, will benefit most in terms of job creation and increased profits if the government were to implement more efficient innovation ideas in health sector?
Over the past 50 years, we have witnessed unprecedented innovations in the sphere of medical technology, similar to those witnessed in consumer technology. As we look ahead into the future, we see a shift toward more customized, individualized treatment and a focus on preventative, diagnostic medicine. These advancements - including e-health, telemedicine and home care - are today technologically within reach and have the ability to save lives, reduce health care costs and enable a wider segment of the population to lead longer, healthier lives and thus contribute to society, the economy and the country. It is envisaged that the increasing divergence of technology and the individual - in combination with increasing medical innovation - will not only create new jobs within health care in addition to research and development, but also require investment in several areas including telecommunications infrastructure, manufacturing, education, retail and information management, thereby creating new jobs of the future.
Saudization has been the main concern of Saudi Labor Ministry. How does GE Healthcare contribute to boost Saudization and increase its rate in health sector?
A key focus of GE Healthcare's growth and investment plans for the Kingdom is its commitment to building a strong local workforce of Saudi nationals in parallel with a solid focus on skills development and knowledge sharing. GE El Seif Healthcare Arabia employs more than 200 skilled professionals, representing almost a quarter of GE's total workforce in the Kingdom and growing strong. Furthermore, as the government focuses on reducing reliance on foreign talent in the private sector, GE Healthcare is working together with the Ministry of Health to build capability, train talent and co-create innovative solutions that will fuel socio-economic growth. Since April 2009, GE Healthcare has provided professional training in the areas of clinical, technical and leadership programs and courses to over 1,300 Saudi professionals in partnership with the Ministry of Health.
How does infrastructure contribute to developing the level of health care services? What is GE's further plan in terms of changing the design of Saudi health infrastructure?
Health care infrastructure fundamentally defines the provision of health services delivery and shapes both the perception and experience a patient has with the health care system. As governments across the region continue to invest in building health care infrastructure, GE Healthcare's Hospital and Healthcare Solutions (HHS) team is focused on hospital infrastructure projects with several prestigious hospital developments across the Middle East being delivered by HHS today. HHS delivers clinical departmental solutions in partnership with designers and packagers to create modern, resource efficient facilities through the development of functional healthcare designs ensuring optimized patient workflow and integration of the medical technology.
MEDEXPO was held in Jeddah recently where more than 150 international companies participated looking for investment in health sector. What are your expectations regarding development of health sector infrastructure and how can these companies work together?
Addressing the needs of an entire health care system requires deep collaboration between government and the private sector. With one of the goals of the ninth development plan being to enhance the role of the private sector, it is only logical that more public private partnerships in healthcare will emerge in Saudi Arabia. One of the defining features of GE's operations in the Middle East has been our model of partnership. To that end, we remain focused on bringing our technologies and solutions to the region working in partnership with both public and private health care providers to address critical unmet needs. We continue to strive toward being a partner of choice to the Ministry of Health, National Guard Health Affairs and Suleiman Habib Group, and other health care system providers.
The Middle East is the most important market due to the increasing levels of diseases caused by modern life style like obesity, diabetes and breast cancer. What new solutions and technologies GE offers to reduce the rate of such disease in the Middle East in general and the Kingdom in particular?
In Saudi Arabia, GE's Healthymagination initiative is best exemplified by the breast cancer screening program being implemented by the Ministry of Health with the support of various public and private sector partners and NGOs, including King Fahad Medical City, Saudi Cancer Society, GE and Susan G. Komen for the Cure. I believe that spreading awareness among people in addition to providing special health care services and initiatives can help in reducing diseases. People have to care about their health just like they care about their looks and appearance. We recently noticed that most of the Arabs focus more on their appearance and pay any amount of money for having a more healthy and attractive look. Our main focus is to raise public awareness of their physical illnesses and health needs.
