Leading global renal care provider Diaverum participated in the Jeddah Economic Forum on Thursday, which was centered on public private partnerships (PPP). Dag Andersson, President and CEO of Diaverum, were among the participants of a panel discussing the state of PPP projects in the healthcare sector. At the Jeddah Economic Forum, Dag Andersson, President and CEO of the Diaverum Group, underlined Diaverum's unequivocal commitment to the Kingdom: "Diaverum is known for developing sustainable and coordinated solutions that create value for patients and healthcare systems. As a company, we are large enough to gain experience from more than 4 million dialysis treatments per year, yet small enough for an individual approach. We are pleased to support the KSA government in its mission to provide universal access to quality healthcare across the Kingdom and have ambitious growth plans, which further accentuate our commitment to bringing long-term, added value. We want to make the Kingdom our biggest market globally by 2018 to address the growing need for renal care services." The renal care expert plans to operate up to 30 clinics by the end of 2016 and invest over SR500 million in critical medical infrastructure over the next 5 years. The Saudi government has turned to privatisation in order to bring healthcare to remote areas of the Kingdom, thus improving the availability and quality of state-of-the-art services for the benefit of patients. In 2013, Diaverum was awarded a five-year contract from the Ministry of Health to care for 5,000 renal patients across the country and has since opened 15 clinics in Riyadh, Jeddah, Baish, Buraidah, Dammam, Hafer Al Batin, Khamis Mushayt, Madinah, Najran, Onizah, Qunfudah, and Taif. Diaverum is the first foreign health care provider in Saudi Arabia working in partnership with the Ministry of Health to safeguard renal capacity and excellence in medical quality for several thousand patients suffering from renal failure. Andersson added: "We strongly believe that our patient-centric services and the care we deliver make a difference for our currently 1,600 patients. We want to empower them to lead as normal a life as possible, and we are looking forward to welcoming more patients to our clinics in the time to come." "We have set ambitious medical targets for all our centres together with the Ministry of Health and out ambition is not only to meet, but exceed the targets. Improved medical outcomes not only benefit the patients, but also the health system through reduced hospitalization and need for other medical services," he said. It is estimated that currently 9% of the Saudi population suffers from Chronic Kidney Disease, which may ultimately lead to a need for regular dialysis treatment and is a serious condition that requires the cutting-edge technology and specialist care. On average, the number of these patients is growing by 10% annually. Diaverum brings over 20 years of renal care expertise as well as world-class clinical research that will allow the Saudi Ministry of Health, in the long term, to take big steps towards reducing the risk of chronic disease through prevention. Jeddah Economic Forum was first held in 1999 and since then has become an annual event where government leaders, business executives, and leading thinkers come together to discuss solutions to regional and international social and economic concerns.
