Abu Dhabi to host healthcare investment meet

Abu Dhabi, Oct 9 (IANS) To boost private sector investment and ownership of healthcare infrastructure in the emirate of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), a new healthcare investor meet will be held here Monday.

The First Abu Dhabi Healthcare Investor Conference will bring together a diverse group of top decision makers from the local, regional and international investment community with healthcare business executives and regulators to discuss investment opportunities in the healthcare sector in Abu Dhabi, the official Emirates News Agency (WAM) reported.

'This conference is a great opportunity for us to make the investment case for health care in Abu Dhabi,' Ahmed Mubarak Al Mazroui, chairman of Health Authority - Abu Dhabi (HAAD), which will host the conference, said.

'We believe in the mutual benefits of talking to investors and sharing our needs assessment for healthcare services in the emirate of Abu Dhabi,' he added.

The conference will introduce a regulatory framework on healthcare in Abu Dhabi, enhance learning from the experience of the care delivery models in the US and large corporate players in other emerging markets, and provide an overview of the healthcare investment needs.

Among the invited speakers is Regina Herzlinger from Harvard University who will speak on 'New Models of Care Delivery in the United States'.

The conference, the report said, is expected to attract investments to the healthcare system for inpatient and outpatient care, and insurance and information management.

Stating that Abu Dhabi has been taking an open and practical approach to investment, HAAD chief executive Zaid Al Siksek said: 'This conference builds on this openness, bringing together regulators and investors in one forum to enter into discussion and exchange of ideas - so they know what healthcare services need exist, and we know where they can help.'

Abu Dhabi, the biggest of the seven emirates that make up the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and producer of the majority of this Gulf nation's oil, has been actively pursuing a policy of diversifying its economy.

As part of this, it has embarked on a strategy to provide people in the emirate access to world-class healthcare facilities.

For this, it has set up an independent regulatory body, entrusted the management of public hospitals to world-renowned partners from the private sector, introduced mandatory health insurance, and has implemented innovative public-private partnership models in health insurance.