Clinic AI in Istanbul, what private clinics and health systems should know in 2026

The private care market in Istanbul

The Ministry of Health's 2024 yearbook counts 230 hospitals and 47,062 hospital beds in Istanbul, served alongside 5,020 family medicine units.⁵ The private outpatient sector is concentrated here, with 152 of Türkiye's 260 private outpatient clinics and 225 of its 566 specialty medical centres in Istanbul.⁵

TÜİK counted 15,754,053 residents in Istanbul at the end of 2025, 18.3% of Türkiye's 86,092,168, at a density of 2,943 people per square kilometre.⁸ The same register counted 1,519,515 foreign nationals living in Türkiye.⁸

Visitors add a second market. TÜİK recorded 63,917,057 visitors leaving Türkiye in 2025 and tourism income of 65.2 billion dollars, and it counts health and medical reasons as one purpose of travel.⁹ The Ministry's Health Tourism Department publishes the facilities and intermediaries it has authorised to serve international patients.⁷

The rules an Istanbul clinic works under

Law No. 6698 on the Protection of Personal Data, known as KVKK, lists health data among special category personal data.² Since its amendment by Law No. 7499 of 2 March 2024, Article 6 bars processing such data except on listed grounds, including explicit consent and processing by people under a duty of confidentiality for medical diagnosis, treatment and care, and requires the adequate measures the Personal Data Protection Board sets.² The Personal Data Protection Authority oversees the law and runs the data controller registry and breach notifications.¹

Article 9, rewritten by the same amendment, allows personal data to go abroad where a lawful ground exists and the Board has made an adequacy decision for the destination, with appropriate safeguards as the route where no decision exists.²

The Ministry of Health publishes the sector's laws, regulations and circulars, and runs e-Nabız, Türkiye's personal health record system, where patients manage their own health information.³⁴ Its Regulation on International Health Tourism and Tourist Health makes an authorisation certificate mandatory for any facility serving international health tourists, and requires an international health tourism unit with at least one member of staff whose foreign language is documented.⁶ Personal health data recorded under that regulation is processed in line with KVKK and transferred to the central health data system as the Ministry directs.⁶

wai hosts each clinic's records in its own country, under that country's rules. We set this up with your clinic. wai is built to meet the Ministry of Health's requirements for clinics in Istanbul. For an Istanbul clinic, records stay in Türkiye, each role sees only what its work needs, and the doctor signs every note.

The languages Istanbul patients write in

The Constitution makes Turkish the language of the state.¹⁰ An Istanbul inbox also carries the languages of more than 1.5 million foreign residents and of visitors from abroad.⁸⁹ Authorised health tourism intermediaries must be able to answer calls around the clock in at least two foreign languages.⁶

wai works in any language and is built for Arabic-first care.¹¹ Each reply is drafted in the language the patient wrote in, and a member of the team approves it before it is sent. Bring last month's real messages, in every language they arrived in, and watch each one run.

What a demo shows in Istanbul

The demo opens on a WhatsApp message in Arabic, sent at 11pm Istanbul time by a family abroad asking whether their mother can see the clinic's orthopaedic surgeon in Nişantaşı during a week-long visit next month. wai reads it in the family's thread, checks the surgeon's busy times in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar, and drafts an Arabic reply with two open consultation times. The international patient coordinator approves it at 8am.

The booking link takes the deposit the clinic sets, and the family receives a confirmation, a receipt and an intake questionnaire before they fly. The mother gets a wai Profile for her letters and results, with permissions she can revoke and an export she can take home.

In clinic the surgeon tells her the scribe is on, then reads the drafted note, edits it and signs. The signed note and the letter can be exported into the clinic's own records system. Every draft, approval and signature is logged and exportable.

For health systems, government and insurers in Türkiye

A hospital group, an insurer or a public body can commission a system built on wai for one defined care pathway, with records hosted in Türkiye and the rights to its data, configuration and models written into the contract. The work starts with a pathway and measures agreed with clinicians, as the organisations page sets out.

Where to start

First, record the Article 6 ground for each use of health data, and check the Board's adequate measures are in place.² Second, ask in writing where each copy of the data is stored and on what Article 9 route any copy leaves Türkiye.²

Third, if the clinic treats international patients, confirm its authorisation certificate and name the staff in its international health tourism unit.⁶ Fourth, add a line to intake telling patients an AI scribe drafts the note and the doctor signs it, using the consent form template, and count last month's enquiries by language and hour for the demo.

Frequently asked questions