Creating Value in Healthcare: More Treatment or More Health?

Medicine, longevity, hospitals and technology have advanced dramatically. AI, robotics, digital platforms and personalised medicine are reshaping services. These achievements raise a fundamental question: what is the true purpose of healthcare?

Is it more hospitals, patients and surgery, or longer, healthier and happier lives?

Consultations, procedures, equipment and expenditure matter, but do not alone demonstrate a healthy society. More treatment does not always mean more health.

Spending rises while obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental health problems persist. Healthy life expectancy does not necessarily improve at the same pace.

“Health systems should create societies that need hospitals less.”

Protecting Life and Well-Being

The principle attributed to Şeyh Edebali, “Let people live so that the state may live,” expresses an understanding relevant to health policy.

Protecting life includes prevention, healthy living, quality of life, mental and social well-being and peace of mind, alongside treatment.

The Turkish words “sağlık” and “sıhhat” offer a meaningful distinction. Treatment addresses disease; health encompasses physical, mental and social well-being; “sıhhat” evokes balanced and peaceful living in a broader sense.

Future systems should protect this holistic well-being.

Prevention and Responsible Technology

Prevention, nutrition, physical activity, mental health, improved environments and early diagnosis should be central.

AI may help identify risks, anticipate chronic disease and personalise advice. Technology alone is insufficient. Trust, ethics, fairness, conscience, compassion and dignity remain essential.

Whether described as healthcare, wellness, longevity, healthy ageing or health tourism, the shared purpose is protecting and improving people’s well-being.

Health Tourism’s Wider Purpose

Prevention, healthy ageing, rehabilitation, functional medicine, wellness and longevity will become more prominent alongside treatment travel.

Türkiye’s infrastructure, experienced people, location, thermal resources and expertise provide opportunities to create health as well as treat illness.

A well-known Ottoman verse expresses the value of health: “No worldly power can equal a single breath of well-being.”

People’s health is among their greatest riches and strengthens the state.

Measure the Life Made Possible

We should measure how many people can live healthy, peaceful and productive lives alongside how many receive treatment.

The most successful systems will produce health and holistic well-being.

“Let people live so that the state may live.”

“No worldly power can equal a single breath of well-being.”

True value begins with protecting health and quality of life. Strong societies and states offer health, well-being and hope alongside treatment.

Behlül Ünver President, World Health Tourism Platform