From biotherapy for treating cancer to autonomous systems delivering medical treatments, innovation is bridging critical gaps in essential health.
With healthcare stuck in systemic inefficiencies, how can technology be leveraged to prevent the health system from reaching breaking point?
At Davos, leaders argued that healthcare is nearing a breaking point not because innovation is lacking, but because systems designed for “a bygone era” can’t absorb it. Michael Sen said scientific progress has outpaced adoption because governments still treat healthcare as a “social cost” to be patched, rather than “critical infrastructure” requiring industrial policy, regulatory reform, and scalable pilots. Mansoor Al Mansoori described Abu Dhabi’s approach as “care before it cures,” using policy as the platform, data as fuel, and AI as the engine—connecting all providers, integrating wearables, and shifting screening rules to raise early breast-cancer detection to 85%. Nadine Hachach-Haram highlighted operating rooms as under-instrumented, expensive assets where “no one was actually capturing” multimodal data; Proximie claims up to 25% efficiency gains and rapid payback by automating documentation and improving throughput. Deepak Nath argued medtech is moving from better implants to “tech-enabled surgery” that reduces variability and boosts capacity, but requires collaboration across clinicians, systems, and governments. The closing prescription: be decisive, build interoperable standards, redesign incentives, and “try it out—and whatever works, scale it.”
Good morning, everyone. Thank you very much for joining us. It's a very important topic which is going to affect everyone here and everyone in general health care and how we can take advantage of the innovations that we're seeing today and the inefficiencies that are preventing them to actually flowing through into the health care system and to the population. I have a fantastic panel here today. Michael Michaelson here, who is head of Fresenius, and will be talking from the knowledge base of treating 450 million patients every year. We have Nadine Karam, who's done an incredible thing in figuring out how to organize an operating room. More efficiency, more productivity, better impact. Working within a hospital system. Very complicated, of course, as we all know. Mansoor Mansoor, who also has done an amazing thing with his integrated health care system. I think one of the first that is population wide, that integrates 100% of all of your providers and reaches the population, enabling prevention and personalization at scale. So we're looking forward to hearing about that. And also, Deepak, then I'm very happy to meet because he's in orthopedics and sports medicine, which all of us one day, if we follow our wellness regimens, we're going to need for knee replacements and other other things. So a great panel and a great discussion, because everyone's bringing a different angle to how we can actually help this situation. I'm Kathy Bloomgarden, CEO of Ruder Finn, and I'm really honored to be with this group today. But first, let me just outline what the problem is and what we're going to look at. Number one, how are we going to make this a political priority, not just in terms of more resources, but fundamentally changing the way we look at the health care and look at the health care system. Two, what are the obstacles that are holding us back? And then three, very concretely, what can we do about it? What are the next steps? I think we all know innovation is moving at pace with AI. You know, we see more therapies being developed faster clinical trials. We have cell and gene therapies that are now standard of care, diagnostics that can actually find disease early. They're wearables that help us to really understand what our health problems are before they even become apparent. There's a tremendous amount that can actually change healthcare outcomes and our own trajectory in terms of health care today, but they're not flowing through to the population. And this is not just a question of resources. A lot of discussion about putting more money into health care. It is not just health care costs. It's more than that. And if we take the US as an example, the US spends about, I would say, 18, close to 18% of GDP, whereas pure nations spend around 9% of GDP. And yet life expectancy in the US is four years less than it is elsewhere. For pure nations, it's about 82 as compared to 78 elsewhere. We have administrative administrative costs in the US, which are four times what they are in poorer nations. So we really have a system level problem. And this system level problem can't be fixed with some incremental, moves and steps. It needs to be a fundamental rethink. It needs a new lens. And I'm really hopeful. Our panel today is going to give us a little bit of insight into how we're going to accomplish that. Michael. Okay. Your first step. So from the perspective of so many countries that you work in, and how do we move this to be a priority, not just a priority for discussion and debate, but a priority for new thinking, for a new lens, and for really having the courage to actually change habits and culture so that we can adopt some of these innovations.
Yeah, Kathy, thank you for this. Also wonderful opening and almost teeing up because for if you have been coming to Davos for quite a while, for almost a decade, we've been always discussing what innovation and scientific progress can potentially bring to the healthcare system. Yet it never went. Ultimately, as you said, to the population, and now I do feel we are at an inflection point and, it is moving on the political agenda. But there are different driving forces, to that one. The first one, why did it take so long, in my view, is framing in in most of the countries we I would say we have three archetypes of, of speed. But in most of the countries, the healthcare systems we have come from a different century. They are from a bygone era, if you so wish, to design the system, the mindset when it was, when it was crafted and created, you know, in those days, we only had acute care. There were enough, medical experts there, and we we didn't have that much of efficiency strain. And now we see, you know, we have a workforce shortage. We do live longer around the globe, which is great, but with chronic disease. And then we have this big, efficiency gap. You said 18% in the US. Germany is the second most expensive one with 12.5. And also there the outcome is not is not good. So the mindset comes from we have a system. This is very old which does not fit the challenges we have in today's world. And what up until now, I have seen decision makers, governments, governments and so on and so on. Do is patch around and with a mindset coming from in most developed countries that this is a social cost because healthcare is a social benefit for people, and therefore you come from the social cost in your budget. And social costs because of many reasons are exploding demographics and so on and so forth. So they need to be under control and we patch around. What we do need is a fundamental change with all the scientific progress. You mentioned AI, I could go into biologics and all this progress. How can we get it into the system? You need a fundamental change. How can we grow healthcare without increasing costs? How can we make it more robust and resilient? And here comes the change in in a few countries I see and regions geographies I see healthcare becoming a top national security topic because we come from the security of supply, of medication, of critical and essential medicine. If you look, for example, to the US, and we are in very intense discussion because we provide essential medicine, life saving medicine for, all populations around the globe. But in the US it is moved to more a national security topic, a topic of sovereignty and resilience. And therefore that is then accompanied in a new world order, which we are seeing, which is more transaction based and based on national interests, that there is a clear industrial policy behind it, because we are, when it comes to medication, way too dependent on pharmaceuticals. When we go to the active pharmaceutical ingredients, the API way to, dependent on, for example, countries like India and China. And this was the result of the last couple of decades where it was all about efficiency, getting costs down. So we all outsourced, outsourced, outsourced in a differently globalized world. But I called it yesterday. This is not globalization. This is mere dependency. So now it is more about the security supply. And you see programs, billions of dollars going into sovereignty and resilience program. When I see three archetypes, I would say US has this as a strategic agenda. China has this as a strategic agenda. Europe is moving slowly, very slowly. Rationally they have it. But the actions behind that are lacking and we need to speed up on that one. We, as Frezenius yesterday announced with SAP together, a digitally enabled, interconnected digital backbone solution, sovereign for Europe. This is one of the actions where we need public partner, public and private partnerships and collaboration. And then the third archetype, and I think we will talk about that one where you have countries who can immediately leapfrog. If they design a system, then you can immediately already benefit from the technology. So what what needs to be done, in my view, is we need to define it as strategic critical infrastructure, thereby have an industrial policy behind it. Secondly, we need to embrace technology innovation, especially digitization. And I, because these are the means to fundamentally bend the cost curve and make the system more efficient in terms of also of workforce efficiency, clinical outcome. And I don't like the word productivity so much. I would say abundance create abundance and thereby scale healthcare. And the third one, in order to be action oriented, try it out. Whatever works, scale it.
Well, that's a great picture. But I must say many countries have a vision. I'm going to turn to Mansoor about this, because many countries have a vision of trying to accomplish this. And we I think many people realize AI and technology infrastructure is really the key, but it's very hard for people to move to implementation and execution. And Mansoor, you have been a pioneer in putting this together. The collaborations that Michael was talking about. You have a great collaboration with several people, Microsoft, and in particular for creating this platform. So how do you think you can help countries think about moving their vision into more of an execution phase and what holds them back?
Thank you. And I will add to my colleagues, health is our greatest wealth. And when you think about it that way, if you focus on it, you will have thriving economies and societies. The challenge with many systems, they look at it as censored social policies. We need to shift thinking about health as a core infrastructure layer of every nation and every system. The moment you think about it as a core infrastructure, then you will think about long term. You will think about its connectivity, durability, transparency and quality, and it will be a core component of every decisions. However, when you look at many systems today, it's fragmented, it's opaque. You will have pockets of excellence in the US, in Germany, great hospital, but they are operating in silos where health I we see it in Abu Dhabi or the UAE as integrated. It's an infrastructure at the heart of it. The people come first AI enabled with a vision and a mission to care before it cures. The moment you think about care, before you cure, you shift your mindset from a secure system to a very proactive and care before it cure you. Start to think about how can I build a health system that can predict risks, prevent diseases, and cure fast to save lives and cure to restore the well-being of of the individual? Then you will look at it completely different. One of the challenges of many systems and there are great visions. But where is the failure in execution? Many systems are thinking, still thinking at what I call first order effect. The first order effect. When you just thinking about, let me fix this problem patching. When it comes to health and health care, it should tackle second order effect and third order effect. So second order effect is only fixing the system. Third order effects. You are shaping societies. So we need to shift our mindset from fixing a problem to create a compounding effect long term, from thinking about projects of digital and to building a platform that it integrates, and from reacting to a trajectory impact. I'm not, very supportive of the idea of digital health. And for multiple reasons. Digital health is only the component of enablement. The moment you think about intelligent health, it's the foresight and foresight equal responsibility. The moment you have a foresight system, then you have a very proactive health system that can really intervene much earlier and contribute. Where many health systems failed is the willingness to try. I always say failure is the tuition of mastery. You need to fail and try and then scale. You will not scale without going through the pain. And in Abu Dhabi it didn't happen as a magic. It went through lots of integration, lots of pain, working hard with all of our ecosystem to produce a very intelligent health system that that can scale. And what many health systems as well struggle with is the ability to decide. So I believe we need more decisions. Napoleon Bonaparte said one of the most difficult thing, and that's why it's more precious, is the ability to decide. We spend our time many health system in hesitation and decision. Do we have this or we have that? Do we try this? Or you should decide and reimagine your whole healthcare. You need to reimagine it to be a core infrastructure, people at the heart of it, with the concept of care before it cure fully integrated and keep going.
Well, that's a very optimistic picture. I mean, there are many places in the world, including, I might say the US, where deciding together is a really big challenge. But, but you've clearly laid out the roadmap for how we can accomplish this, which is thank you so much. And I want to turn to Nadine and I must say, you know, having really achieved productivity in an O.R. in a large hospital system, and the experience with NHS is, is really quite remarkable. So how did you do that and how did you, let's say, take this, first of all, have the decisions made that they would go forward and make the investments de-risking and looking a little bit more long term, perhaps. And as Michael said, a new framework for how you would really look at things. It doesn't it requires more than just an ask, can we use the software platform? It is really more of a rethink. And how did you how did you accomplish that?
Yeah, no, it's a great framing and great to be on this panel. Great to be here. I think.
One was to say in practice, I have seen firsthand the challenges I practice in reconstructive cancer surgery in the US.
Is it working now, trained between the US?
I've seen first hand.
That we're experiencing we're experiencing challenges around the workforce. We're experiencing challenges around quality and safety and variability in surgical care. It's fair to say there's still a lot of variability in terms of the quality of surgical care that you get. And a challenge around throughput. Let me just paint a bit of a picture in terms of what is the environment that we're functioning in. So for those who don't know, I mean, operating rooms are highly complex environments within health systems. Operating rooms are probably the most expensive asset for a hospital. When you factor in the workforce, the equipment, the integration, the case. And it's where we're delivering highly complex care for patients, you know, and there's a study that showed, you know, all of us in our lifetime will go through a number of procedures. So it affects all of us. It affects us globally. But within that environment we still see a lot of variability. It's still quite manual. So in terms, yes, you might have a medical record system, but it's really a system of record what happens in the room on the day. All that data, all that information, all the devices, the systems, the processes no one's actually capturing. And so it's pretty much a moment in time. There's no way to build that intelligence layer, that sensory level of learning and reinforcement from those environments. And so as a surgeon who saw this firsthand for over a decade, I was incredibly frustrated because this is an environment that is ripe for disruption and innovation and reimagining. And so we built proximity, which which is a software layer that really we deploy in operating rooms. We bring it in with sensors into those environments. And what we do is we connect device data, processes, people within that environment. We collect multi-modal data, and then we activate real time intelligence and real time insights. That's going to influence the flow of care on the day, but also the quality of care for patients. And some of the, I guess, low hanging fruit, you could say, is the initial problem we were seeing, which has an important ROI for hospitals, is just throughput on an average, or our utilization is probably around 65%. And when you think about the investment in that space and the patient care that needs to happen, there's a lot that an orchestration and sensory layer of intelligence can bring to automate that over time. What we also started to see is we could start to look at benchmarking of surgical performance. We could look at acceleration of care delivery. We could look at standardization of care. We could try to reduce that variability within that that layer as well. And we showed that we could unlock up to 25% efficiency for the system. We could add at least an extra case a list. And that has value to the patients that are sitting on waiting lists, waiting for care to be delivered. It has value for systems that are trying to accelerate care through the system, bring more care to patients and accelerate access. And it has value, I think, to strategics that are trying to deploy their devices and systems and equipment within these environments as well. And all of that is good and well. But it's really then about how you scale and build sustainability around that. And so we've been able to show that you can actually build an operating model and an operating system that can scale this across thousands of hospitals and many, many countries in about 60 countries to date. But the final bit, I would say is in terms of how do you do it? I think at the heart of it, at the end of the day, it also takes radical leadership within systems, bold leadership that are willing to reimagine how they deliver care, that are willing to face those realities of how their systems are managing and that are willing to take those system wide decisions. Which is why it's so exciting when you see what's happening in places like Abu Dhabi with our partners like Brazil, who are here in the audience, and others that are able to take Swift. And again, I'm surgical like I'm a surgeon. So surgical decisions, swift decisions say we're going to look at this systematically and look at this as an integrated stack, as an orchestration layer, how we deliver care. And I think that has been our sort of recipe for success so far. But I would say we're still in the early days of where smart operating rooms and integrated operating rooms are going to be.
Well, it is amazing that no one was capturing the data. And it was just assets. Yes.
It's absolutely amazing.
Well, let me talk to you, Deepak. And I, you know, really understand that medtech is getting to an incredible turning point and you've spent a lot of your time trying to integrate it into the innovations that you're actually working on. Is it truly at a turning point? Why? And what are obstacles that could actually hold that back from reaching population scale?
Yes. So I think, I mean, the world is at a turning point. So too is medtech at its core. MedTech is about bringing together disparate technologies toward a solution, a problem. Right. And it's these are software and materials and design and, and control systems and all the rest of it. And there's important advances occurring in each area in their own right. And medtech is about bringing those together as manufacturers. We're also acutely aware of fairly disruptive changes occurring in customers and patients and governments that we that we serve, right, whether in the United States. Bending the proverbial cost curve where 18%, as you noted, of GDP spending, going to healthcare at some point, you know, as population, ages, you can't continue at this rate forever. So the way healthcare innovation gets paid for and how healthcare gets delivered has changed, and in other parts of the world, it's about providing access to care where you're at one 2% of GDP on health care, which is clearly not kind of what's sufficient. But yet you can't, you know, quadruple that level of spend either. So for us as manufacturers, we're aware of these types of changes. And an innovation model until recently has been built on effectively building for that the United States, where the big profit pool is, where the economics are attractive, and then effectively taking that into other parts of the world. And that has served its purpose for a period of time. Now it's about evolving our own innovation models to to serve, serve a different kind of reality. And that, I think, provides an imperative for us. And at the same time, from a technology standpoint, there's been advances have been occurring for quite some time. AI is the latest thing. I think all of us see the potential for it in all different aspects, including how we develop products, but also the type of solutions that we provide, to, to patients and healthcare systems. And I think that's the part that's very, very exciting. Right? So you've got the imperative, you've got technological advances, AI being a very disruptive force. And how do we bring all of these things together. So within that, in my particular neck of the woods, in medtech, it's about historically about coming up with a new implant, a new knee or a new hip or a new shoulder. And those things are important because you've got advances in technologies and devices and, and anatomies and so forth that, that, create opportunities. But increasingly the thrust of innovation is actually not that next knee, but rather how you enable surgeons to put in that knee with less variability in terms of outcomes. As Nadine noted, taking greater advantage of the capacity that exists. Right. And and actually optimizing, technique. And this is where AI comes in. So a lot of our thrusts now the focus of innovation is in tech enabled, surgery. So it could be in surgical planning. So for example, we use AI in, planning what happens to soft tissue, particularly cartilage, when you go in to replace a knee. And getting a better understanding of that, reflecting that understanding in coming up with better plans and using AI to get better and better with each surgery you do, that's an imperative. What does that do? It, first of all, enables a surgeon to deliver a better outcome for the patient, a greater satisfaction for a patient. But the benefit to the system is 20% of knee replacements. You know, don't go that well. Patients aren't so happy with the result for a variety of reasons. And so AI what it helps to do is reduce that variability and outcome, greater patient. And that ultimately results in savings for the system. And the third aspect is by planning better, planning more efficiently and able to execute that better, you can actually take greater use of resources that are available like like like an Or suite in the hospital. So drive greater throughput in the hospital. So this is an example of the type of systemic thinking that manufacturers like ours are bringing to bear in to in different areas. And of course I can go on and give you give you other examples, but at least hopefully I've given you a sense now of how manufacturers are responding to to changes that are happening, how we're adapting our innovation models. And hopefully, you know, when we're sitting here next year, we'll be documenting all the different ways in which, you know, we've we've made made impact happen. Yeah.
Well, let me go back to Michael. And you did mention that the EU is a little behind in terms of, you know, moving and really adopting some more aggressive efforts. But you you operate in many different countries here. And in particular, if we take Germany and Spain as two examples, you have said publicly that some of those countries actually do have to do a little homework. Yes. So the question is what is the difference what what actually can help Europe move a little bit faster.
Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I would say even the panel is a is a perfect example of how many innovative things are happening and have great potential. Yet your initial question still remains does it trickle and get into the system and ultimately to the patient? And there I see the biggest impediment, because you can have, a lot of the latest, topics and data driven, let's say, decision making and guiding in the surgery room. But if the fact of the matter is that as a care delivery institution, I'm not getting reimbursed more, I'm investing in all of these. And yes, you can make a case with better throughput and higher quality. Everybody does that. And that is also fact based and true. Yet it did not yield into any change because the costs in the system as such are rising and rising and rising, for example, because of demographics. That's why we need to look at it from a system and policymaking point of view. And also in the first row, we have some here from other European countries. And you see in, in, in the EU, as you mentioned, we have the largest hospital chain in Spain, and we have the largest hospital chain in in Germany and in Spain. It is also, on the one hand, the willingness of the leadership team to embrace these technologies, to bring it into the operations and to focus on the patient. Everything very data driven on a digital backbone is around the patient, and you can access the whole system from a patient point of view. You can check in before you go to a hospital or from a doctor's point of view, where there are clinical pathways in there, and whether in oncology, in surgery or in gastro, many things are data driven. The point, though, is the regulatory environment allows for that one. If we had that surgical theater, with all the data in one hospital in Germany, I could not copy paste that to a different hospital in a different area in Germany because they are GDPR data security rules and everything. And in this case, this is all under the same EU umbrella. So in this case we cannot blame the EU. This is all under the EU data and AI umbrella and one country can do it and the other country cannot do it. So this is the willingness of the decision makers to make that innovation, to increase the diffusion and adoption to the benefit of the patient. But there again, it's a leadership decision. If you talk to healthcare professionals or decision makers and they view it as a social cost, you will get nowhere. If there is somebody and you said you're an engineer, you are responsible for healthcare, you have that system oriented view, then you can get it done. Other topics. We have been focusing a lot on technology and healthcare delivery is affordability, and access is actually true for every country. Affordability and access is also to the latest, modalities on therapies in medication. Think about biopharmaceuticals and biosimilars. These is affordable medicine for people. Yet you need the right regulatory framework. If you don't have the right regulatory framework, only go on price or cost. The same thing will happen, like with generics, and you will end up in drug shortage. So we need the regulatory framework, the willingness of the leader. And I'll give you another regulatory topic in Spain, if you want to design a system around patients and you want to do population health management, then there should be no boundary between the ambulatory setting and the hospital setting, because only then you can own a patient as a system and guide the patient. In Germany, for example, there is a separation between the ambulatory setting and the hospital setting. That means the moment the patient leaves the hospital and is discharged, we lose him or her. So we cannot have this comprehensive patient journey. And these are all regulatory topics where I would urge governments and decision makers, especially in Europe, because this is also the chance on a geopolitical arena to have sovereignty on healthcare with data and pharmaceuticals.
Thank you. Well, by the way, everyone stick to three minutes according to the culture of what we're supposed to end on time. Right on time. So let me turn to you, Nadine. You know, I think we're all aware of the cost pressures. And there's a short term cost needed when you want to invest, for example, in your software platform to transform the Or. So, what kind of conversations did you have? And is it a cost issue, really? Or is there is there really something else going on? And if we can move more toward what Montse is saying, more of a different framework than I think we would look at the cost structures differently.
Yeah. I mean, I think just just.
To add also.
Maybe one point to the previous speaker, I think when it comes to all of these transformations or these disruptions, it really is also built on trust as you bring these new technologies to bear and also data architecture.
And what we often see is a lot of companies, sorry, what we see is a lot of companies, sort of don't think upfront about the data architecture that's going to be globally accessible, knowing the constraints of the European market versus US versus Middle East. I mean, every, every region has their rules, their regulations, their constraints. So it's not something you can back into, which is why from day one, we built a we own the whole stack. We built a federated architecture anonymization throughout. So then you can start to compare data between hospital A and B in Germany and hospital C in Spain. Otherwise, if you're not able to sort of aggregate these large data sets to really train and learn these models and then fine tune them to your specific organization, it doesn't really build the scale and impact that you want, but I think to the point you're making about how do you build this within the cost structure. Look, at this point, you know, as we think about a future where you're going to have your or copilot and the or with you, that intelligence layer to address the 5 billion people lacking access to safe surgery, address those needs. Those are that's the blue sky thinking the vision of where we want to go. But you have to provide immediate value today for people to be willing to to bring it in as the wedge to come in. And so from day one, we have to bring both a clinical and a financial ROI. And so when we're deploying our software through a software as a service model for the system, we know that within three months they're making their money back. And then for the rest of the year, it's all upside for the system. So with one hospital we worked with in the US that has about 70 hours, we were able to show that through our model. We could add over a year, up to 9000 extra cases. That's about $90 million of revenue for that health system with the same cost base of the asset. The same ORS have not had to go build new hours and hire new people. So if you can try and find a model where you're able to, you know, sweat the asset, bring more ROI back to the system at a financial level and a clinical level where it's safe and the data is safe. You can then get your foot in the door, build the pipes, and then unlock the future potential and co-develop with that system. And so we always go in with systems saying this is a co-development arrangement. We're going to bring in immediate ROI for you today. But think about the potential. This is vendor neutral. It's going to connect all your devices. It's going to change the way your people deliver care. And we've been able to show we can reduce headcount. So in one of our hospital customers they need one less nurse in every O.R. that was there traditionally to do documentation because we're automating all of that documentation. So I would sort of slightly disagree on the earlier point around there's no financial ROI. There actually is. And if you can prove that, then you'll see that adoption and health systems willing to take a bet on something that has value today, but has much bigger future potential in the long run. And I think the final bit I'd say is you can't look at it in silos of it's just going to solve this bit. The way we look at it is it's the whole perioperative journey. It's that patient journey from pre-op, intra op and post-op. And then how do you drive that orchestration through it?
Thank you monster. I think one of the problems is actually many countries start and then they kind of lose momentum. So they're stuck in the pilot phase and then not really able to scale. They really can't keep and sustain the direction and really achieve a really full changed framework. As you've outlined, what is it that you've done that's actually enabled you to do that? And what what differentiates you from some of the others that have not been able to sustain the momentum?
So we are blessed to be at the age of AI. So I and all of my colleagues refer to it. So we see AI as the engine of our system. Data is our fuel and and policy is the platform. So if you don't have the policy to enable the engine and the fuel, you will not move. The car will sit idle, full of tank and strong engine, but there is no destination. So it's all about the policies, a top down. And that's what we did in Abu Dhabi. We enabled our system, but first we started to build the foundation for it. So we connected all of our providers, all of our hospitals, all of our medical records. We have we started to sequence our population to have more genomics and think about gene therapies and all the personalized therapy. But we didn't stop there. We we believe today that 80% of determinants of health sit outside the hospital. Then when when the patient gets discharged, how do you make sure the continuity of of care because we our vision is care to cure. So we started right now this year we are building an orchestration layer that sits on top of our intelligent health platform that integrates all wearables, regardless of what type of it. It's the aura, the Woop, the Libra, you name them to enrich our data sets to start predict more earlier and, more in depth and add to it the Or data. Add to it multiple. You are creating an intelligent health system that will really increase your productivity, decrease your cost. I'll give you a couple of examples in breast cancer screening, the standard, almost standard screening for female at the age of 40. We change it completely in Abu Dhabi based on our data. When we looked at the insights, we are missing a portion of our population. So immediately we changed the policy to start from 30, we achieved 85% early detection of cancer, breast cancer. Look at the amount of lives we have saved because of data insights, not depending on a previous policy which didn't have the ability to leverage the data. And we integrated all of our imbalances at the whole emirate into a single command. The moment you call 999, you have a mobile hospital. It's not only a response, it integrates to the hospital. The physicians start to intervene before the patient arrives to the hospital. That saved us 30% of response. It contributed to, heart attack responses and we started to see saving lives. So you will see the benefits not only in cost. And that's the mistake of many health systems. They look only about the immediate cost impact. We, as I say, second order effect. And third is the accumulated benefits. Life saved efficiencies, earlier intervention of treatments that will create a very healthy society. And, and that's basically the target of every health system is to maintain a healthier generations. So that's basically what we did in Abu Dhabi, and that's only certain example. And we believe that we should be a living laboratory where we test all the most innovative ideas. And that's where we welcome everybody. And I'm very glad that's my colleague in here is testing our system, validating it and seeing the results. And from Abu Dhabi she can scale even further. So that's our ambition.
Well testing and willingness to fail is certainly is really key. As you've said before. Deepak, let me turn to you for the last comment here. Which is really you've talked about, of course, the innovations that are coming, but what kind of collaborations do you really need? Everyone here has talked about interfaces and how system level is really the key, which requires a lot of input and a lot of collaboration. So what are you seeing in your area? What kinds of collaboration are necessary?
You put your finger on it. It's collaboration at all different levels, right. First, innovation doesn't happen in an island, right? So it's not a bunch of engineers sitting in a lab and just dreaming up different ways of doing this. You've got to first collaborate. And those of us who are in surgical fields with surgeons, broader health care teams. So, for example, in our wound business, it's it's a fairly heterogeneous care team, right. You've got nurses, you've got, wound rehab physicians, wound care specialists and like, so making sure you've got a systemic view in terms of how you develop innovations, it starts there. Clinician and healthcare provider level collaborations. The second, as has been touched on my my fellow panelists here, healthcare gets delivered within a context. There's a system, there's a government system, there's a private system. And being integrated into into that and having an understanding of the fundamental issues that we're trying to solve is important. And I think here in as manufacturers, we've got to evolve our thinking. Some of us are further along than others where, you know, historically we've had a somewhat parochial view, which is innovation is I'm going to solve this one problem here, which is that I've got to change the angle of articulation of this knee, because I know that a, you know, 2% change benefits, you know, results in whatever kind of, you know, acute clinical benefit. Well, that's important. The impact of that dwarfs, you know, what can be had by, you know, reducing variability, you know, bringing that innovation at a, at a price point that works for systems all around the world. I think there as manufacturers, we're still, I would say, in early stages of evolving our processes, our business models to serve, a context. And the third point I'll add to that is, you know, the imperatives are very, very different around the world. Right. Patient populations are different. The state of economies are different. The pace at which you're able to take a policy, make a policy change, and have population level impact in the way that you've been able to achieve in Abu Dhabi. I mean, that's fantastic. It's a great laboratory, and a great impact you've had, but also you've got other systems in which to where it's not quite as, I don't want to say straightforward, but, you know, there's other, other levels you've got to activate. So for us as manufacturers, we need to be aware that there's no one size fits all, to this thing. I don't have the answer to what that looks like, because the solution in India is very different from a solution in, in the United States or, the Emirates. And I think that's some of the work that we need to do yet. So there it's not technology that's the obstacle. It's not creativity of the human mind. That's the obstacle. But it's actually bringing together very disparate forces, each with its own kind of imperative and making it all kind of work. And I think that's where we've got work to do. But I'm optimistic that there's a coupling of imperatives, advances in technology, advances in our own thinking as companies to kind of meet, meet, meet the demand or meet the rise to the challenge.
Okay. I think we've all agreed it's not technology that's holding us back. But as Mansoor says, it's actually policy is critical. So we can end with one minute for everyone lightning round, as they call it. What would you like to see leaders do? That would really make a dramatic change. It would help put health care as a priority in terms of incorporating technology and making a real change. Michael, go around the room.
First of all, acknowledge that healthcare is critical infrastructure and is the glue for your society, both in terms of wealth and obviously having a healthy and happy society. If you have that, what is the regulatory and governance framework to get innovation into the system? Because then you get both, you get the cost down and you get the benefits. And third, once you have that framework, the policies in place, try it out and whatever works scale.
Okay, Nadine.
I would echo what I would echo what all the panelists said earlier. But but to say, you know, if you can really sort of commit and imagine that world where I mean that data, that that data, the richness of that data medium, that multi-modal data that's going to help us deliver precision surgery, precision care, precision intervention, where now patients are able to turn up knowing in their specific use case, when you've got an integrated layer with their medical record, their comorbidities, their, their system, their sort of context that they live in, can you start to define and be much more precise around what are the risks and benefits for that patient? What is the best care and decision for that patient? Is it a two degree issue or is it actually this is not the right knee should be another. And being able to bring that precision, that co-pilot, I think is going to help us change the way we deliver, you know, procedural care. And so having systems, taking those bold bets on these frontier technologies is going to change the way and reimagine, deliver care, I think is really key. It takes courage and it takes radicalism that we need to see more of.
Mansoor.
I believe the size being decisive. And that's what every health system and we should remember, healthcare is a foundational. And you need to always ask yourself as a system, what you are here for. You are here for to care before you cure. You are here for to extend the healthy lifespan. If you ask yourself that question, then decide based on it and follow the third order of fact. Just don't look at short term gains. Look at long term societal impact.
Look, I mean, just to build on all the great points that my fellow panelists have made, just one thought I'd have is, you know, we're in an era where AI or digital is the next big promise, right? In healthcare, from a policymaker standpoint, keeping in mind standardization and interoperability, I think it's really important to realize the full potential of AI and data. So think in terms of what financial services went through, what communications went through, in a different era, where there's innovation that's possible, but that's built on a common architecture, common set of standards, within which people are innovating. We're a long ways away from having that within healthcare. So from a policymaker standpoint and not just policymakers, those of us who are active in this field. So thinking in those terms, I think will enable, you know, a nonlinear gain in terms of translating the potential of digital and AI into real, tangible benefits for patients and societies.
Well, in order to achieve that, I think we have to go back to what Nadine said. Courage and radicalism are going to be required. And I think, as Mansoor said, we need to move toward a new way of thinking of healthcare for most countries, and most governments were not thinking of care. First, we're solving a problem one after the other without thinking system wide. So thank you so much, everyone. Thank you. Appreciate the discussion.
Thank you.