Becton, Dickinson and Company’s Bilal Muhsin on the future of Connected Care
As hospitals seek to improve efficiency without compromising safety, connected environments that anticipate deterioration and surface insight earlier are becoming essential, says Muhsin
15 February, 2026
TT
16
While the Middle East’s healthcare infrastructure has long been in a state of rapid development, the conversation at last week’s World Health Expo (WHX) Dubai signalled a shift from simply building hospitals to refining how they operate. Becton, Dickinson and Company (BD) has been a central figure in this transition, recently completing a multi-year restructuring to emerge as a pure-play medtech organisation.
This evolution was punctuated by the strategic separation of its biosciences and diagnostics businesses, a move finalised in early 2026 to focus the company’s capital on high-growth medical technologies. By divesting these segments to Waters Corporation, BD has sharpened its internal lens on Connected Care, a segment that integrates medication management, automated dispensing, and patient monitoring into a single, cohesive architecture.
On the sidelines of WHX Dubai, Gulf Business spoke to Bilal Muhsin, EVP and president of BD’s Connected Care segment. Muhsin discussed how this new, leaner organisational structure is allowing BD to move beyond individual hardware sales to provide the intelligent “connective tissue” that modern UAE healthcare providers now demand.
Read: AI, prevention and policy alignment take focus at WHX in Dubai
What are BD’s priorities heading into 2026?
Following our recent earnings call and the separation of our biosciences and diagnostics businesses, BD is focusing on strengthening its medtech portfolio and accelerating growth within Connected Care. Our priorities include advancing infusion management systems, enhancing pharmacy automation and medication dispensing platforms, and expanding advanced patient monitoring solutions, while continuing to build the intelligence layer that integrates these components into a cohesive ecosystem.
We are also redefining how we engage with healthcare providers. Deploying a connected, cloud-enabled architecture requires long-term collaboration that aligns with a hospital’s strategic objectives around safety, efficiency and digital transformation. This involves investing in local expertise, advisory support and technical partnerships so that hospitals are supported throughout the lifecycle of adoption rather than only at the point of installation.
In addition, we are enhancing cybersecurity resilience and upgrading capabilities across our device ecosystem to reduce reliance on legacy systems and ensure that clinical environments remain secure and up to date. By 2026, our objective is to demonstrate that connected, data-driven medtech solutions can deliver measurable improvements in patient safety, operational efficiency and overall clinical outcomes, while meeting increasingly rigorous regulatory and security expectations.
What innovations are having the most impact on healthcare delivery today?
For BD, the most significant innovation is the development of a connected ecosystem that unifies medication management, infusion therapy and patient monitoring into a coordinated clinical workflow.
Through our Connected Care segment, which includes pharmacy automation platforms such as our medication dispensing systems, our infusion management solutions and advanced hemodynamic monitoring technologies, we are building an architecture that aligns therapy delivery with physiological response in real time. This includes the addition of intelligent data layers that allow clinicians to query operational information more intuitively and identify patterns across wards and patient populations.
More broadly, the integration of these systems is reshaping healthcare delivery. Traditionally, clinicians administering medication would separately monitor physiological changes and manually determine whether the intended therapeutic effect had been achieved. This required navigating multiple interfaces and reconciling information across devices, which increased cognitive load and the potential for delay.
When infusion, dispensing and monitoring platforms are connected, it becomes possible to align therapy with patient response far more effectively.
If a medication is delivered to stabilise blood pressure and the patient’s readings do not reflect the expected improvement, a connected system can detect that divergence immediately and prompt reassessment. The objective is not to replace professional judgement but to surface insights earlier so that adjustments can be made before deterioration occurs.
Our approach follows a staged progression, beginning with decision-support tools that highlight trends and predictive indicators, and gradually incorporating more advanced automation with clinician oversight and the ability to intervene manually at any point. The aim is to simplify complex workflows while preserving accountability and clinical authority.
AI is widely discussed in healthcare. How is BD approaching its use in clinical settings?
BD’s approach to AI begins with our position inside the therapy pathway. Because we operate in infusion, dispensing and monitoring, we have direct visibility into what medication is being delivered and how the patient’s body is responding.
That proximity allows us to design algorithms that are grounded in clinical reality rather than applied as a generic analytical layer. We are layering AI across our Connected Care ecosystem in a structured manner, starting with decision-support capabilities and predictive insights that align closely with real-world workflows.
In the broader healthcare landscape, AI adoption must reflect the sensitivity of clinical environments.
Unlike other industries, healthcare decisions have immediate implications for patient safety, which means predictive tools must operate within carefully defined parameters. The clinician remains the ultimate decision-maker, and automation is introduced progressively, with oversight mechanisms and the ability to override instantly. AI should assist by reducing cognitive burden and accelerating access to relevant insights, not by operating independently of human supervision.
Data governance and sovereignty are central to system design, particularly in regions such as the UAE and across Europe, where regulations require patient data to remain within national boundaries.
Our cloud architecture is designed to be adaptable to these requirements, with data segmentation and layered security built into the system. High availability, redundancy and timely upgrade capabilities are essential to maintain trust and operational continuity. When implemented responsibly, AI enhances clarity and responsiveness in clinical care while reinforcing, rather than undermining, professional expertise.
What kind of growth do you anticipate in healthcare over the next few years?
From BD’s perspective, growth is closely linked to expanding Connected Care deployments and deepening partnerships with hospitals that are ready to adopt system-level integration rather than standalone products. We are investing in local capabilities in markets such as the UAE to support long-term, multi-year collaborations, particularly in areas such as infusion management, pharmacy automation and AI-enabled data layers that help unlock value from existing infrastructure.
We expect that growth will not simply come from device sales, but from delivering measurable improvements in patient safety, operational efficiency and medication management.
Globally, healthcare spending is expected to continue rising, driven by demographic expansion, the growing prevalence of chronic conditions and sustained investment in advanced care capabilities. In the Gulf region, this trajectory is reinforced by national healthcare strategies that prioritise digital transformation and high-quality medical infrastructure.
However, the nature of growth is evolving. Hospitals are under greater scrutiny to justify investments with clear evidence of clinical and operational return. Technology adoption is increasingly tied to outcome improvement, whether that means reducing medication errors, lowering ICU readmission rates or improving workflow efficiency for nursing staff.
Many healthcare organisations have already invested significantly in electronic medical records and backend IT systems, yet the full value of those investments has not always been realised. The next phase of growth is likely to focus on extracting intelligence from existing data, integrating systems that historically operated in isolation and applying predictive analytics in ways that directly support patient care. In that context, growth will be driven by interoperability and insight rather than the expansion of hardware portfolios alone.
How do you see the future of healthcare evolving in the UAE and globally, specifically for BD?
For BD, the future of healthcare is closely aligned with the maturation of Connected Care, which brings infusion therapy, medication dispensing, pharmacy automation and advanced patient monitoring into an integrated, intelligent framework.
With a sharper focus as a pure medtech organisation, we are building systems that allow therapy delivery and physiological monitoring to operate as part of a continuous feedback loop rather than as disconnected processes. This integration supports clinicians in making more timely and informed decisions while maintaining oversight and accountability.
Across the wider healthcare landscape, delivery models are gradually shifting from episodic intervention to continuous, data-informed management. For many years, clinicians have had to interpret information from multiple systems in parallel while managing increasing patient complexity and workload pressures.
As hospitals seek to improve efficiency without compromising safety, connected environments that anticipate deterioration and surface insight earlier are becoming essential.
In markets such as the UAE, where healthcare infrastructure is modernising rapidly, and digital adoption is strong, the opportunity lies in ensuring that therapy delivery, monitoring and medication management systems operate cohesively rather than in isolation. When these elements communicate effectively, clinicians gain a clearer understanding of how treatment decisions impact patient physiology in real-time, which can help reduce adverse events, shorten hospital stays, and support safer care transitions.
The future of healthcare, both for BD and for the broader industry, will depend on how well-integrated systems can guide clinical judgement in a way that is practical, secure, and outcome-focused, rather than simply technologically advanced.
