The “Turkey-United Kingdom Healthcare Business Forum”, organized in cooperation with the Ministry of Health and the Embassy of the United Kingdom, began in Istanbul. Deputy Minister of Health Assoc. Prof. Tolga Tolunay and Dr. Şuayip Birinci also participated as speakers.
Speaking at the opening of the Forum, Deputy Minister Tolunay pointed out that Turkey was one of the least affected countries by the COVID-19 pandemic, which has affected the whole world since the first days of 2020.
“Our goal is to prepare the ground for new business parnerships"
“Turkey's existing potential in the field has been demonstrated once again during the pandemic,” Tolunay said and added, “Our goal to hold this Turkey-United Kingdom Healthcare Business Forum is to improve the health market share of both countries and to prepare the ground for new business partnerships on the basis of a win-win approach."
Contact-tracing teams traveled around the globe 228 times
Deputy Minister of Health, Dr. Şuayip Birinci delivered a presentation on "Turkey's Digital Health Infrastructure" at the panel on "Digital Health."
Stating that artificial intelligence tools can predict how many patients will come to a hospital tomorrow, Deputy Minister noted that they could measure the probability of a patient being readmitted to the hospital following discharge.
“We are the most digital country in Europe,” said Birinci, who also said that they could track death rates within a year according to disease scores.
Investing in hospitals and intensive care beds
Emphasizing that Turkey's investment in health care in recent years had proved to be a great advantage in the pandemic, Birinci said, “I would especially like to say that there were 80 square meters per bed while this figure is not 250 square meters per bed. We have built much larger medical facilities. We have added 6 times the number of intensive care beds made in 100 years in 12 years. We made as many beds in 6 months as the number of intensive care beds in a highly developed country with a population of 60 million people in Europe."
The success of contact tracking teams
Speaking about the work of contact-tracing teams, Deputy Minister said “Our contact-tracing teams have traveled 228 times around the globe and covered a distance of 9 million kilometers. And they are still on the move."
Deputy Minister reported that the Life Fits Home (HES) application was the most used contactless tracking application in the world with 198 million codes generated. Noting that at least 82 million codes had been generated Birinci stressed that 25 million risk warnings had been made.
Biritish investors were informed about the health industry
Presidential Investment Office Coordinator Derun Ülgen informed the investors from the United Kingdom about Turkey's medical devices market, consumables market, terms of investment incentives, healthcare workers, intellectual property issues, clinical trials, free zones and investment offices.
About the Turkey-United Kingdom Healthcare Business Forum
The Forum will be held with the aim of revealing the potential of cooperation between Turkey and the UK and bringing Turkey's quality and high-tech healthcare services.
The 2-day program hosted by Deputy Minister Tolunay will include representatives of the public and private sectors as well as senior officials from the Ministry of Health and the United Kingdom.
The sessions titled “Turkey-United Kingdom Cooperation Opportunities”, “United Kingdom-Turkey Cooperation in the Pharmaceutical, Medical Device and Medical Supplies Sector”, “United Kingdom-Turkey Opportunities in Digital Health”, “International Patient Treatment After the Pandemic” will be held at the forum.
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