DUBAI, 8 June 2007 — Early prediction and diagnoses of diseases save lives and money, said Leading Regional Clinicians at the Middle East Media Summit hosted By GE Healthcare yesterday.
The one-day summit addressed how the development of medical technology has helped in early diagnosis and chances of recovery. GE Healthcare, the $17-billion healthcare business of global technology, media and financial services major General Electric Company (GE), hosted a regional media summit here yesterday.
The summit put the spotlight on regional health care needs and lifestyle diseases.
Over 40 delegates comprising leading medical luminaries, patient associations and media representatives joined GE Healthcare to also discuss the evolving practice of medicine and patient care from treating symptomatic late-stage diseases to a focus on earlier pre-symptomatic detection and intervention.
GE Healthcare International President and CEO Reinaldo Garcia delivered an overview keynote address focusing on the company’s vision for the future of health care delivery.
Garcia, said that four trillion dollars is spend on health care annually, 70 percent of that is spent on treating disease while only 15 percent is spend on diagnoses.
The late stage model of health care is that most patients seek treatment after the symptoms appear, he said, “Our vision for the future is to enable a new ‘early health’ model of care focused on early diagnosis, pre-symptomatic disease detection and disease prevention.”
The summit highlighted on advances in prevention, treatment and diagnosis of cardiovascular disease, cancer and fetal defects. Other sessions covered health care economics and how molecular imaging is transforming the way chronic diseases are being diagnosed.
Today, 70 to 80 percent of the resources in health care are devoted to managing symptom-based, advanced diseases. Shifting resources to “early” health and developing technologies that allow healthcare providers to diagnose disease at the earliest possible stage, when there can be many treatment options, is better medicine and makes economic sense.
GE’s ‘Healthcare Re-imagined’ vision promotes the ‘early health’ model of care — helping clinicians re-imagine new ways to predict, diagnose, monitor, treat disease and facilitate access to information, so their patients can live their lives to the fullest.
With the Middle East experiencing a period of significant demographic change including massive population growth and increasing urbanization, there is a huge and unprecedented demand on its healthcare infrastructure, technology and expertise.
“The Middle East has new market drivers today such as a strong private sector, the emergence of health tourism, enterprise selling and shifts in health insurance policies. In parallel, the trend in manageable disease conditions such as obesity, diabetes and stress are on the rise,” Garcia said.
“GE’s ‘Healthcare Re-imagined’ approach encourages health care providers and the public to consider shifting their focus from late disease to early health, where there can be many more treatment options,” he added.
