The role of the hospital in the changing landscape of UAE health care: a focus on Dubai.

In the UAF, health services have developed greatly in the past 40 years and there have been enormous improvements in population health. The hospital sector is growing strongly with private sector investment. However the current and future health needs of the population are complex and may not be properly served by the continued expansion of hospital capacity. In this paper, using the Emirate of Dubai as a case study, we examine the changes that have taken place in health services and attempt to predict their optimum configuration and capacity in the future taking into account population structure and growth and levels of morbidity and service use.