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The Increase of Lifestyle-Related Diseases Is Overwhelming the Health Care Systems of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Countries

• The unprecedented growth in wealth in the GCC countries has been accompanied by a shift toward less healthy diets and more sedentary lifestyles.
• Obesity is a major problem in GCC countries, and the high rates of obesity among younger cohorts are especially alarming. In each of the GCC countries, the prevalence of diabetes is more than double the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average.
• GCC countries' health care systems are not well equipped to prevent chronic diseases, diagnose them early, and manage them effectively.

Western Models Offer Cautionary Lessons for the GCC Countries

• Western countries do not invest sufficiently in interoperable information technology.
• Countries do not engage in significant performance monitoring and improvement.
• Payment systems are not aligned with desired outcomes, resulting in ineffective and inefficient health care delivery systems.
• Consumers are not sufficiently engaged in their own care.

GCC Countries Have an Unprecedented Opportunity

• The GCC countries are well positioned to build a health care system of the future from the ground up, relatively free of the entrenched stakeholders that hold back the systems of most developed and many developing countries.
• By pioneering a health care system based on population health management principles and sophisticated health information technology, the GCC countries have an opportunity to make Arab medicine again the beacon of progress that it was centuries ago.