Future Health – A Global Initiative by Abu Dhabi has released Embedding Wearables into the Future of Health and Wellbeing, a new whitepaper examining how wearable technologies could support more preventive, personalised and continuous models of care.
Developed in collaboration with Knowledge Contributor Deloitte, the whitepaper sets out a five-pillar framework for the next phase of wearable-enabled healthcare, spanning technology and interoperability; data governance and privacy; regulatory and policy enablement; consumer and clinical adoption; and ecosystem partnerships and innovation. Together, the pillars demonstrate the technical, regulatory, clinical and organisational considerations required for the safe and scalable integration of wearable technologies into Abu Dhabi’s health ecosystem.
The publication comes as connected health technologies become more sophisticated and widely adopted. The global wearable technology market was valued at USD 92.9 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach USD 229.9 billion in 2033. Yet the whitepaper finds that wider integration continues to face challenges spanning data quality and clinical validation, fragmented technology ecosystems, privacy and data governance, and clinical integration.
H.E. Dr Noura Khamis Al Ghaithi, Undersecretary of the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi, said: “Wearable technologies are giving us a more continuous picture of our health and creating new opportunities to identify risk earlier. Beyond individual data points, their largely untapped value lies in connecting those insights with the health system, to support earlier intervention and help people stay healthier for longer.”
“In Abu Dhabi, we have already built strong digital health foundations, and our focus is to ensure that new sources of health insight can be translated into meaningful action. Through this whitepaper, Future Health is setting out a practical framework for how wearable technologies can support that shift at scale”, she added.
Abu Dhabi already has several of the foundations needed to advance this agenda. Through Sahatna, the Department of Health – Abu Dhabi combines wearable data with longitudinal health records from Malaffi to generate a personalised Health Age score, giving users insights into the clinical and lifestyle factors influencing their health. Alongside e-prescriptions and the Emirati Genome Program, these initiatives create opportunities to connect continuous health data with Abu Dhabi’s wider focus on prevention, longevity and personalised care.
Rohan Sawhney, Partner, Deloitte Middle East, said: “The value of wearable technology lies not simply in its adoption, but in how effectively the data it generates can be translated into personalised interventions and improved health outcomes. Abu Dhabi has the infrastructure and strategic ambition to advance this transformation. The opportunity now is to move beyond individual pilots towards wider integration, ensuring that wearable technologies deliver meaningful, long-term value for individuals and the healthcare system.”
Looking ahead, the whitepaper sets out an indicative three-phase roadmap. The Build phase focuses on policy clarity, technical standards, early pilots and stakeholder alignment; Accelerate considers deeper integration into health platforms and provider workflows; and Transform explores wearable data as a routine, trusted input into precision prevention, clinical decision-making and population health management.
The framework identifies high-value applications including diabetes and obesity, maternal health, elderly fall-risk and preventive wellness, reflecting the potential for continuous health insights to support major public-health priorities. As adoption grows, the whitepaper argues that realising their wider potential will depend on ensuring the data generated can be used safely, consistently and meaningfully across health systems.
The whitepaper reflects Future Health’s 2026 theme, ‘To Sense is to Predict’, exploring how earlier and more continuous health insights can support more predictive and preventive approaches to care.
