RIYADH: Insurance giant Bupa Arabia’s recently launched ‘Digital Clinic’ could help revolutionize the health care landscape in Saudi Arabia, according to the company’s chief business development officer.
Speaking to Arab News, Ali Sheneamer said that the advanced services offered by the Digital Clinic could help people stay healthy, which will ultimately strengthen the company’s profits.
“Health insurance companies make money if you are healthy. So, I will do whatever it takes for you to stay healthy — a vested interest, and you will like it because you would like to stay healthy as well,” said Sheneamer.
He added: “We just launched this week the Bupa Digital Clinic, where at the starting point, we have our own doctors who are extremely vested in your health, and they want you to be healthy.”
He further added that Bupa Arabia is using technologies like artificial intelligence to track peoples’ health and analyze possible outcomes of their habits.
“Looking at your lifestyle, and your interaction with health care facilities, AI would help me predict will you be at risk in the future or not, because the data of hundreds of thousands of people who followed the same path ended up here,” said Sheneamer. “If you don’t change what you are doing today, you will end up here. I don’t want you to be there.”
Under the Digital Clinic, people suffering from chronic conditions who are subscribers of Bupa insurance will be assigned to care navigators, so that they will not miss their routine checkups.
“I start engaging them, ensuring they do their checkups on time. If you are busy, I will send you someone home to collect a blood sample. I have developed that service because it costs me less to send them to you than you having complications in the future,” said Sheneamer.
He added: “If you need medications, I will deliver them to you. So, when you start your journey with a doctor through Bupa Digital Clinic, his mission is to ensure that your health outcome improves, and he will deploy, all the logistical solutions that we have to ensure that you stay on target.”
According to Sheneamer, wise use of technology could help predict, analyze, and design a health plan for every chronic patient.
He said that the marketing campaigns for Bupa Digital Clinic began on Sept.3, with billboards installed across cities in Saudi Arabia.
“We have been piloting Bupa Digital Clinic using our own doctors for a couple of months now, and we feel confident to go out to the world and say, use us. We are very excited about that. The more advanced we become in AI, as we train them on different datasets, this will help us cover a lot of insights about the health of our own population,” said Sheneamer.
Describing Bupa Digital Clinic as a “clinic in your pocket,” Sheneamer added that users can access services using their smartphones.
“We have lots of doctors available for you in Bupa Digital Clinic. In the future, this might be complemented with physical clinics. Probably 80 to 85 percent of the time when you go to a doctor, the doctor will never touch you. You just sit, he asks questions and you answer. So, why drive to the hospital if you end up not being physically examined for the symptoms you have,” said the insurance company official.
He added: “There are certain cases that you need to go to hospital. If I suspect a fracture in my foot or arm, I need to go there because he needs to examine it physically. But if it’s normal symptoms that I have today, flu or headache, he will never touch me. So, why the hassle of going into traffic jams.”
He further said that if doctors in the Digital Clinic suspect the need to examine a patient physically, the health care expert will refer them to a hospital.
Sheneamer added that after the physical examination, doctors from the Digital Clinic will follow up with the patient to ensure they are staying in good shape.
