All the evidence suggests that 20th century methods of tracking and preventing the prevalence of chronic illnesses and threat of infectious diseases are no match for 21st century health threats. Greater mobility, higher calorific foods, increased life expectancy and more sedentary lifestyles are fuelling the rise of epidemics and chronic diseases.
These trends are particularly stark in the Gulf. Today, of the world’s top ten countries for diabetes prevalence, six are from the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and in the UAE alone, the burden of diabetes may cost up to $8.5 billion (Dh31.26 billion) by 2020. But against this backdrop, the GCC is presented with an opportunity. Through commitments to smart services and a more connected society, the GCC countries can redefine the way they track, monitor, interpret and respond to the disease profile of a growing population and prevent a toll on fiscal health as well as quality of life.
The key lies in an ability to predict.
In order for governments to intervene more effectively, they must deploy more sophisticated methods of analysis to interpret complex and unstructured data. That may seem obvious, but this opportunity is not being fully realised. While the use of big data in health care has been much talked about, there is a need for dialogue around redefining the parameters of big data in order to fully realise the competitive advantage it offers.
This paradigm shift in the way we monitor public health threats is not a distant dream, but a present-day reality.
Health monitoring sites such as Epidemico’s Healthmap, Google’s Flu Trends and the Global Public Health Intelligence Network are disrupting existing detection methods and changing the way global health authorities track — and predict — potential threats. Healthmap’s early detection of the threat of Ebola came before formal channels were alert to the issue. And with a death toll now approaching 9,000 and a potential global impact of $32 billion within two years, it is proving costly to overlook such intelligence.
Closer to home, the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (Mers), continues to threaten the regional population — particularly in Saudi Arabia. According to the World Health Organisation, 636 laboratory cases of the infection were officially reported as of May last year, with 193 confirmed fatalities. By the start of this year, that number had grown to 955 confirmed cases and 351 deaths — a mortality rate of 35 per cent. A vaccine seems the obvious solution to the problem, but as many health experts have pointed out, it may cost as much as half a billion dollars and take years to develop a suitable vaccine. Such preventative measures in a rapidly urbanising population come at a cost — to lives and budgets. What is required is a cohesive, data-driven public health strategy that is integrated with a national e-health mandate — allowing governments to get out in front of such outbreaks and intervene to mitigate their impact. This is no easy task. It requires the establishment of an IT and big-data infrastructure that is characterised by intelligent, robust and reliable systems capable of cleaning out ‘noise’ to synthesise huge volumes of complex data to interpret health trends and identify threats.
Public health agencies must grow and expand their capabilities to include expertise in health care analytics and develop a 21st-century armoury of lab-based and digital tools, that connect information from epidemiologists, microbiologists, geneticists, virologists, with statistical and mathematical analysis, behavioural science and social and economic data. Where patient privacy and data security hurdles exist, public health agencies must recognise the necessity of data philanthropy and commit to the creation of an ecosystem that channels this data for the benefit of the global population.
The importance of this data-driven culture of information across the public health continuum must be embedded within the discourse during Arab Health, which concludes today. It’s time we recognise that there are tools available to us that are not currently being utilised, that can mitigate the threat of chronic illness and epidemics and reduce health care spending across the GCC.
Managing the soaring cost of health care for a dynamic and rapidly expanding population is one of the defining challenges for the GCC in this century. If what we need is more sustainable health care strategies, we must be prepared to reevaluate current methods and recognise the answer lies in predictive intelligence through a more connected, innovation-led commitment to disease control.
Emile Salhab is a principal with Booz Allen Hamilton’s Healthcare practice and Atif Kureishy is a principal from the company’s Technology and Analytics practice. Both are based in the Middle East.
