Kostas Deligiannis is a seasoned veteran with over 25 years of industry experience, Kostas Deligiannis, Zone President at GE HealthCare is responsible for leading the operations across more than 50 countries and company’s +1700 colleagues in EAGM that includes the Middle East, Northeast & Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, Russia & CIS Countries to live its purpose to create a world where healthcare has no limits. In addition to building and nurturing customer relationships, Kostas is driving the company’s growth and increasing market share through its groundbreaking medical technology, intelligent devices, and care solutions. Kostas joined GE Healthcare in 2003 and was promoted to promoted to Sales Manager for Greece shortly after.
In 2010, he became Zone Manager for Central and West Balkans and took over the position of General Manager for Southeastern Europe in 2013. In 2018, Kostas became the General Manager for GE Healthcare in Eastern Europe. Last year, he was appointed Zone President for Middle East, Northeast & Sub-Saharan Africa, Turkey, Russia, and CIS countries. From 1998 to 2001 he worked in CNRS (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique) in Grenoble (France) in the domain of superconductivity, having been awarded the European Union Marie Curie Fellowship. He has also been also honored with the Bodossaki Foundation Scholarship. Kostas graduated from the Physics Department of Athens University (Greece) in 1994. He was awarded with a PhD in Solid State Physics from the University of Southampton (UK), where he also worked as a Researcher for one year.

1. Give us an overview of your organisation. What are your key activities and strategic focus within the healthcare sector, particularly across the GCC and MENA region?

GE HealthCare is a leading global healthcare solutions provider with a more than 125-year history, including 50 years of trusted partnership in the region. We are innovating medical technology, pharmaceutical diagnostics, and integrated, cloud-first AI-enabled solutions, services, and data analytics. We aim to make hospitals and health systems more efficient, clinicians more effective, therapies more precise, and patients healthier and happier. 

 Globally, we are a $19.7 billion business with approximately 53,000 colleagues, serving more than 1 billion patients annually, and have an installed base of more than 5 million pieces of equipment. 

With deep experience and strong relationships in the region, we are helping address unique healthcare challenges through holistic strategies that have led to significant improvements in healthcare standards, clinical diagnosis, and patient outcomes.

 In the region and globally, GE HealthCare’s Imaging, Advanced Visualization Solutions, Patient Care Solutions, and Pharmaceutical Diagnostics businesses help improve patient care across prevention and screening, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, and monitoring.

2. What emerging trends and critical challenges do you believe are most significantly influencing the industry's trajectory in this region?

Governments and health ministries across the region have made healthcare a top policy priority, recognizing that healthy citizens are crucial to a strong nation and economic growth. They are supporting this with budget allocations. Nevertheless, cost remains a top concern for both public and private healthcare providers. So too is finding and hiring qualified clinical staff and technologists, as well as building systems that expand access to more people and raise the quality of care and patient experience. 

In addition, AI and digitalization are increasingly seen as powerful tools for achieving these goals, but special care is required to implement solutions that meet providers' needs.

Health ministries also are focused on developing best-practice care pathways that can be implemented nationwide to tackle top disease priorities in a resource-efficient manner that also expands access and improves outcomes.

3. What is your strategic outlook for the healthcare sector over the next decade? How do you anticipate the industry will evolve? *

We see the region’s healthcare sector rising to the challenges facing the industry globally: ageing populations, rising rates of chronic disease, evolving care models, clinician burnout, and persistent workforce shortages. The industry is working to overcome these, and we see three elements being particularly effective: collaborating across disciplines, adopting new technologies, and leveraging the incredible power of data.

All of this is leading to the future of healthcare, precision care, where smart devices and data connect information longitudinally across diseases throughout the patient journey to help clinicians deliver better outcomes.

One aspect of this transformation is the role of medical imaging. We believe imaging is shifting from being used primarily for diagnosis to increasingly being part of the toolkit for how doctors treat disease.

Another development is leveraging the enormous volumes of data in clinical care settings. We see incredible power in the integration of data from advanced imaging systems, labs and other sources to give clinicians a clearer picture of disease progression, and greater insights into the most effective treatments.

AI will increasingly be part of the picture. Not only is it valuable in returning time to clinicians and technologists by automating repetitive tasks and providing guidance during imaging exams. As well, in imaging departments, AI models can analyze scans in real time, flagging anomalies that might otherwise take hours or days to surface. 

 4. What role does innovation play in your organisation's strategic framework? Please elaborate on your R&D initiatives and share insights into any significant projects currently in development or recently launched.

Our legacy of innovation is more than 125 years old, dating back to the 1890s, when we made the forerunner to today’s X-ray machines. For us, innovation is not a buzzword, especially in the context of healthcare. Innovation empowers us to provide solutions that can deliver better outcomes for patients and customers. That’s why we invest nearly US$1.3 billion annually in R&D. 

 We focus innovation in three areas: creating new products and solutions, developing new applications for products, and enhancing our existing products to improve outcomes for customers and their patients. Worldwide, nearly 10,900 hardware, systems, and software engineers, and those focused on clinical research, contribute to this effort.A recent example comes from our 2025 AI Innovation Lab. The project is looking to address radiology staffing shortages by combining advanced imaging tools with AI agents to develop the industry’s first agentic AI diagnostic imaging assistant, integrated into devices designed specifically for radiology.

 Another innovation is our new PET myocardial perfusion imaging radiotracer. In 2025 it was successfully deployed with its first patients and now is set to be adopted across 25 imaging sites in the United States. The radiotracer provides improved diagnostic accuracy compared to traditional SPECT imaging for patients with known or suspected coronary artery disease.Here in this region, innovation is happening through partnerships. Last year, we signed an MoU with the Mohammed Bin Rashid University of Medicine and Health Sciences in Dubai to conduct research on the use of AI in point-of-care ultrasound. We also are working with the Egyptian Ministry of Health to conduct research on ultrasound use in the country, with the goal of using the data to help enhance AI algorithms embedded in ultrasound systems to help operators conduct scans that can support optimal clinical outcomes.

5. How is your organisation integrating sustainability principles into your healthcare operations? If any, what specific initiatives have you implemented to minimise environmental impact and advance sustainable healthcare practices?

We’re living in a world where environmental challenges can significantly impact health outcomes and further exacerbate health disparities, making clear the importance of sustainability to everything we do. We have strategically embedded sustainability throughout our operations. It’s helping us to drive innovation, support long-term business resilience, and help create a world where healthcare has no limits.

What this looks like in practice globally is that during 2024 (our last complete reporting period), we reduced our operational Scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 23% since 2022. Our total use of renewable energy has grown from 14% in 2022 to 27% in 2024, while the share of EVs in our global fleet has risen from 11% to 28%. In 2024, we also recovered approximately 8,050 units of imaging, ultrasound, magnets, and surgery machines (7,375 in 2023), leading to 7.8 million kilograms of reused material (7.3 million in 2023).

A good example is our work to reduce our scope 3 emissions is our program to upgrade the electronics of existing MR machines, enabling them to retain their existing MR magnets. From a carbon footprint perspective, the ability to reuse existing magnets is particularly important and has helped avoid approximately 100 tons of CO2 emissions as compared with the installation of new systems.

 Longer term, we are working to reduce our absolute Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 42% by 2030 from the 2022 baseline, and our absolute Scope 3 emissions from purchased goods and services, upstream transportation and distribution, business travel and use of sold products by 25% by 2030, on the way to net zero by 2050.

6. What innovations or solutions is your organisation planning to present at WHX Dubai 2026? Are there any particular offerings you are especially excited to showcase and experience yourself?

With the launch of World Health Expo Dubai, we are even more excited to share our latest technologies with the hundreds of thousands of visitors from across the region and the world. This year, we are showcasing innovative imaging, advanced visualization solutions, and patient care solutions, most of which are new. 

Technologies and systems include a new ultra-premium, next-generation cardiovascular ultrasound system that enables navigation of the heart in extraordinary detail. We also are showing a smaller ultrasound system that supports expanded healthcare access, not only because it’s portable, but also because it provides caption AI support that provides real-time guidance for rapid and confident assessments at the point of care.

In the CT space, we are showing a system designed to provide consistent, high‑quality imaging for accurate diagnoses, even in challenging patients with atrial fibrillation, breath-holding difficulties, heavily calcified coronaries, in‑stent restenosis, and situations where an ECG trace is unavailable.

 We are showcasing several MR systems, including a powerful next-generation 1.5T MR system with deep-learning intelligence at its core, offering advanced diagnostics in cardiovascular disease and oncology. For MR systems, we are developing a helium-free, sealed magnet platform that aims to dramatically reduce liquid helium usage without sacrificing power efficiency, operational security or clinical performance. Also supporting MR operations, we have developed a cutting-edge, deep-learning MRI acceleration technique for rapid volumetric imaging across multiple patient groups, thereby expanding access, improving imaging workflows, and enhancing patient experience.

We are presenting the first PET/CT system in our new all-digital platform. The remarkable digital detector design at its core delivers high resolution and an unparalleled increase in true NEMA sensitivity.

 For the surgical suite, we have two mobile C-arm systems that enable clear visualizations during interventional procedures. One system offers detailed imaging with OEC 3D for precise fluoroscopy and m-CBCT images. The other is ideal for everything from orthopedic to vascular procedures in a lightweight, one-piece system.

In the area of image guiding solutions (IGS), visitors to our stand will see several solutions, including a C-arm featuring a slim, compact, cable-free system that allows full movement and patient access. This includes a wide-bore C-arm designed to enable cone beam computed tomography (CBCT). We are showing a tool that enables 3D visualization of coronary stents from all angles during a procedure, without the need for an additional device. Another software tool, by using deep learning technology, is designed to enhance the quality of CBCT images by removing streaks. Also, on display is another take on the C-arm: an offset C-arm system that maximizes space and freedom of movement around the patient.

We’re excited to present a new enterprise imaging solution, an integrated platform that enhances diagnostic capabilities by centralizing imaging data, streamlining oncology workflows, and ensuring efficient, anytime, anywhere access to pathology data and tools.

On our stand, we are presenting two Patient Care Solutions. The first is a monitor adaptable to acute care settings such as the emergency department, ICU, ambulance, or surgical suite with scalable monitors and interchangeable docks. The second is a next generation an aesthesia machine with a large display, smart vaporization, customizable apps, and upgradeable features.

In mammography, we are profiling our latest scanner that harnesses the power of AI and leverages dual DL technology to reveal fine details and deliver images with greater purity. 

Finally, we are presenting two digital X-ray systems, the first is a floor-mounted system; the second is a highly automated overhead tube suspension system. Both feature streamlined workflows to help decrease the physical strain on technologists. 

7. Is there anything else you would like to add?

We are excited to see World Health Expo Dubai in its new shape and form. It remains a premier space for us to connect with the healthcare community from across the MEA region and also globally. It is an ideal forum to strengthen partnerships, showcase solutions and collaboratively address the region's unique challenges. We look forward to many more meaningful discussions on elevating health together.