Kuwaiti healthcare services enhanced by artificial intelligence
As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly expands worldwide across sectors, Kuwait Ministry of Health has moved to apply it in diagnosis, treatment and training of medical personnel to keep pace with advanced developments and deliver top-tier medical and health services.
The Ministry has drawn plans to integrate AI tools in hospitals to improve the speed and accuracy of diagnostics, support clinical care, enhance health research and drug development, and streamline administrative operations.
Key initiatives launched in hospitals span various specialties, particularly medical imaging, surgery and scientific research, after AI proved it contributed to reducing medical errors and easing surgical procedures in less time than conventional operations while delivering more precise outcomes. Among these efforts, Jaber Al-Ahmad Hospital employs AI in surgery and endoscopy, including ICG blood-flow technology and robotic systems, across general surgery, urology, obstetrics and gynecology.
The Ministry recently chaired a GCC workshop, “Innovation and AI in Healthcare,” focusing on deploying technology and AI to develop health systems, improve service quality and strengthen Gulf cooperation. Kuwait is also keen to leverage AI applications to respond to patient inquiries, explain test results, discuss prescriptions and help direct patients to the appropriate specialty.
In parallel, Kuwait‘s healthcare is undergoing a major transformation, with AI reshaping delivery in medicine, diagnostics and treatment.
AI has moved from theory to a practical tool that changes healthcare‘s contours, from highprecision early diagnosis and faster drug discovery to personalized therapies tailored to each patient. This transformation is rooted in “augmented intelligence,” positioning AI as a partner to the physician, not a replacement, handling routine tasks and big-data analysis while doctors and researchers focus on clinical decision-making and human interaction.
Reflecting this integration are research efforts at Dasman Diabetes Institute, advances in dentistry, and contributions of nuclear medicine to improve image quality and develop targeted “theranostics,” alongside data quality and protection strategies that make care more precise and efficient.
Dr. Anwar Mohammad, a researcher at the Department of Translational Research at the Dasman Diabetes Institute, told KUNA that AI has become pivotal in advancing medical and research sciences, achieving a qualitative leap in predicting protein structures and DNA/RNA interactions thanks to tools such as AlphaFold, opening avenues to accelerate drug discovery by precisely identifying therapeutic targets and understanding disease mechanisms at the molecular level.
He added that AI shortened time and effort in drug discovery and genomics by analyzing vast biological datasets more accurately than traditional methods and mapping gene interactions critical to understanding chronic diseases such as diabetes.
He said challenges include the need for high-quality, diverse data, the difficulty of interpreting complex models and linking them to clinical practice, and ethical considerations including patient-data privacy, algorithmic bias, and slow regulatory frameworks. He emphasized that the future lies in integrating AI with human expertise to reinforce critical thinking and humane patient communication.
Other key challenges include implementation costs and specialized training needs, that call for a revamp of academic curricula to prepare AI-enabled physicians of the future.