Digital health top priority in Saudi Arabia for enhancing services, says minister

Saudi Arabia has taken digital health as a top priority for the development of the Kingdom’s health services, Minister of Health and president of the Saudi Health Council, Dr. Tawfig AlRabiah, said in his speech during the opening ceremony of HIMSS & Health 2.0 Middle East Digital Health Conference & Exhibition, taking place from Nov. 29 – Dec. 2, 2020.

He explained that a number of projects were started, including the “Mawid” application, which provides a central reservation service. A total of 14 million people registered via this application, and more than 60 million appointments have been booked through it.

In addition, the telehealth service app, "Sehha", allows anyone to communicate with a doctor remotely, the minister said, adding that app is considered a great progress in providing a health service to many patients for more than two years now.

AlRabiah further noted that the ministry worked on applications to provide medicines electronically, so that the patient receives a message and can take the medicine from any pharmacy, through the "Wasfati" app, which contributed to increasing the patient satisfaction level.

"There are many projects underway, including "Nafees" project, which includes an integrated health system and a unified health file, whose results will appear soon. It is a huge project and is expected to take several years to complete,” he continued.

There are also virtual clinics that were implemented during the pandemic, and soon they will be expanded further, which will allow communication with the doctor by booking an appointment, the minister noted, adding that it will be done while providing all patient data and any health information or tests that the patient has made, for the doctor to view.

AlRabiah pointed to the Ministry's intention to unify its applications through “Sehhaty" app, expecting to be launched at the beginning of 2021.

Artificial intelligence (AI) will have an active role in making a paradigm shift by linking different devices in digital health, he stressed.

"We, in the Kingdom, believe that digital health will make a huge difference in providing health services. so, it is one of the pillars of the fundamental transformation that we are working on in the health sector," the minister concluded.