Saudi healthcare sector gathers to achieve ‘Vision 2030’ targets

28/03/2017 05:47 AST

The Kingdom’s SR270 billion healthcare plan under Vision 2030 will set Saudi Arabia on a fast trajectory to growth in the sector, projected to be a SR92.6 billion market by 2020. Partial growth will be technology and informatics driven.

Dr. Yacoub bin Yousef Al Mazrou, Secretary-General of the Saudi Health Council, said “the Kingdom will benefit from health information systems that help avoid waste and unnecessary healthcare services. Telemedicine will also help serve the pressing needs of patients around the Kingdom.”

“The Medical Services Department at the Ministry of Defense is undertaking the journey of healthcare transformation, and IT is a key enabler for such. Our strategic approach is the harmonization of processes and adoption of medical and clinical best practices to achieve the unification of all our patients’ medical records. Consequently, we will be able exchange health data with other healthcare organizations in the Kingdom (HIE). We are pleased to have so many strong partners join us in this event to enable us towards this goal,” said Major General Dr. Suliman Mohamed Al-Malik, CEO, Medical Services Department (MSD), Ministry of Defense, Saudi Arabia.

This is a time where the sands in the Kingdom are shifting and results are already visible in some industries. Capital investments in technology are being prepared for immediate modernization of healthcare services. It is estimated that major public healthcare organizations have SR4 billion for digital healthcare transformation beginning this year. The Kingdom has set for itself an ambitious goal of registering 70% of all existing Saudis on a unified healthcare system, dramatically transforming patient care and pre-treatment briefings.

Governance is now even more important as the private sector is slowly taking parts of medical delivery from the public sector. Healthcare organizations in the kingdom are expected to work the health system in order to enhance accountability with regards to quality issues and patient safety and grow tenfold in the next 3 years.

Against this backdrop, HIMSS Middle East 2030 eHealth and Beyond Conference & Exhibition 2017 will run on April 10-11 under the patronage of the Deputy Crown Prince Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud. International healthcare thought leaders will present and deliberate building world class healthcare practices & standards for the Kingdom.

The conference will cover five key themes with these prime topics critical to the industry:

• The best practices to be used by hospitals in the Kingdom for digital tranformation
• Developing standards to drive health information exchange
• Change management: Using Prosci’s change management process
• Examining best practice for successful enterprise medical imaging
• Clinical coding and ICD-10AM: concepts and values
• Creating a unified patient medical record
Jeremy Bonfini, Executive Vice President for HIMSS International noted that “on the 10th of April we will double the number of the certified digital hospitals in the Kingdom. The diversity of KSA hospitals achieving this recognition demonstrates that digital healthcare excellence is possible in any healthcare environment in the Kingdom. The successes and best practices here in Saudi Arabia in achieving Stage 6 and 7 on the HIMSS Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) showcases how the healthcare sector can achieve the 2030 Unified Medical Record Goal.”

Saudi Gazette