The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia signed a deal with diabetic artificial intelligence company Digital Diagnostics in July. John Bertrand, CEO of Digital Diagnostics, said the Middle East has a lot of potential as a digital health hub because countries are creating more of a greenfield system than in the U.S.
“They don’t have 75 years of policy layered on top of policy,” Bertrand said. “They’re operating almost in a corporate environment where they look at the big picture on how their systems function, reorganize all of them at once and then that’s the new go forward.”
Ustun co-authored a report earlier this year predicting the total digital market would expand to $4 billion in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates by 2026. He said that in both of these countries are looking to reduce the healthcare spend amid the volatility of natural resources markets. Saudi Arabia and UAE are both large producers of oil.