A New Era for Digital Health 2026

Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system2 From local challenges to global lessons, Abu Dhabi demonstrates how an intelligent health system can be built, scaled and sustained. Like many health systems worldwide, Abu Dhabi faces converging pressures – high rates of non- communicable diseases, rising fiscal demands, workforce shortages and the growing threat of antimicrobial resistance. With a population of 4.1 million, adult obesity stands at 22.3% (exceeding the global average of 16%),10 diabetes (types 1 and 2) prevalence at 13.6% (vs. 11% globally)11 and cardiovascular disease accounts for roughly 25% of deaths (compared with one-third worldwide).12 The Department of Health – Abu Dhabi (DoH) set out not only to manage these challenges but to reimagine the system itself – moving beyond reactive treatment towards proactive prevention. The goal: a system that predicts health risks, intervenes early and delivers precision care to enable people to live longer, healthier lives, while sustaining economic resilience. At the centre of this strategy is Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system, linking data from every part of the ecosystem. It allows the system to anticipate needs, prevent avoidable illness and act in real time, embedding intelligence into every level of decision-making, from clinical encounters to population-wide planning, through to personalized preventive care on an individual level.Built on this operational intelligence foundation is Abu Dhabi’s Population Health Intelligence (PHI) platform. Unveiled in October 2025 and built in partnership with Microsoft, this first-of-its- kind platform sits at the pinnacle of Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system.13 It creates a digital twin with the capability to aggregate and analyse de-identified data from across the ecosystem to identify trends, detect emerging risk clusters and guide proactive prevention and planning across the emirate. Abu Dhabi’s investment in AI has been instrumental in enhancing decision-making, detecting fraud and enabling personalized care at scale. Flagship initiatives are already operational, including predictive modelling for major diseases, AI-assisted diagnostics and near real-time claims analytics that safeguard fiscal integrity. To achieve this, Abu Dhabi developed a technology and governance framework underpinned by interoperability, privacy and ethical-AI safeguards, ensuring that the resulting intelligence is both powerful and trusted. This framework forms the foundation of Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system today and is a global model for intelligent, preventive and personalized health. The goal: a system that predicts health risks, intervenes early and delivers precision care to enable people to live longer, healthier lives, while sustaining economic resilience. At the heart of Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system is a framework that makes intelligence-gathering achievable at every level of the health ecosystem and beyond. Its purpose is to transform data into foresight – anticipating risks, guiding timely intervention and continuously refining performance as new evidence emerges. The framework operates through the Predict– Prevent–Act to Cure and to Restore model, a continuous cycle that turns integrated information into decisions: –Predict: Analyses trends and risks before they manifest –Prevent: Designs targeted actions that reduce exposure and disease burden –Act (to Cure and to Restore): Applies insights across clinical, operational and policy settings, then feeds outcomes back into the system for learning2.1 Abu Dhabi’s intelligent health system framework A New Era for Digital Health: Abu Dhabi’s Leap to Health Intelligence 12