GE Healthcare to showcase healthymagination commitment and innovations at Arab Health 2011

GE Healthcare, the healthcare business of General Electric Company (GE), is highlighting its commitment to partner with the Middle East region in addressing the twin challenge of rising healthcare costs and growing incidence of lifestyle diseases by showcasing its path-breaking healthymagination initiative at Arab Health 2011 and Arab Health Congress, the world's second largest healthcare exhibition to be held from January 24 to 27 at the Dubai International Convention Center.

When GE launched its US$6 billion healthymagination initiative last year, its long-term goals were to increase access, improve quality and efficiency and lower costs of healthcare. At Arab Health 2011, GE Healthcare will highlight a variety of technologies developed to support this strategy and help improve patient care worldwide.

With its emphasis on an 'earlier model of healthcare,' healthymagination complements the efforts of Middle East governments to reduce healthcare costs, where disease can be diagnosed and treated at earlier stages, saving costs and improving quality of care for the patient. This is particularly relevant in addressing the growing incidence of lifestyle diseases like obesity, diabetes and stress-related disorders, which are a rising burden on the cost of healthcare delivery.

According to estimates, in the GCC region alone, healthcare costs are expected to grow five-fold from now to US$60 billion by 2025. Demand for overall healthcare is projected to grow 240 per cent in the next 15 years with cardiovascular treatment poised to grow 419 percent. Cardiology will make for 24 percent of the healthcare costs followed by infectious diseases, maternal and perinatal conditions, digestive diseases, genitourinal disorders, cancer and other diseases.

Aziz Koleilat, General Manager at GE Healthcare for the Middle East region, said: "One of the most important aspects of Arab Health is the opportunity it creates for people across the medical imaging ecosystem to make connections, discuss hot topics and share ideas. For GE Healthcare staff, it is above all an opportunity to focus on customers and listen."

Arab Health is one of the definitive platforms that highlight the opportunities and challenges faced by the healthcare sector in the Arab world. For GE Healthcare, the event offers a perfect platform to highlight its technological advancements, especially in the field of medical diagnostics, and also to underscore GE's commitment to public private partnerships in the region to enhance the standards of healthcare delivery.

Koleilat added: Listening to customers, and understanding their clinical challenges and needs is something that GE Healthcare has always made a priority. This year, we are emphasizing healthymagination, which we have successfully launched in Saudi Arabia recently. Healthymagination is a long-term commitment where through focused research & development and active public private partnerships, we work towards enhancing the ease of healthcare delivery and reducing costs. This is critical for the region, which faces the challenge of a fast-growing population and rising incidence of lifestyle diseases that can be addressed effectively through early and timely care."

Healthymagination is a key driver in GE Healthcare's approach to sustainable healthcare delivery. The Lullaby Warmer, a healthymagination-validated product available in the Middle East, for example, has the potential to help caregivers improve access to quality infant care in developing countries where nearly 90 percent of the world's births occur. Although its healthymagination validation status is still pending, Vscan - a new, pocket-sized visualization tool developed to provide physicians with imaging capabilities at the point-of-care – has been launched recently in the Middle East.

The Arab Health Exhibition & Congress is the largest healthcare exhibition in the Middle East, and the second largest in the world. Now in its 36th year, Arab health provides an unrivalled platform for the world's leading manufacturers, wholesalers and distributors to meet the medical and scientific community from the Middle East and beyond. 

For more information about GE Healthcare, please visit www.gehealthcare.com. For latest news, visit http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com/http://newsroom.gehealthcare.com.