The Deputy Minister of Health for Planning and Health Economics, Dr. Mohamed al-Yamani, has indicated that the Information and Communication General Department (ICT) at the Ministry of Health (MOH) shows keen interest in applying the Saudi e-Health Transactions Program and meeting its requirements.” The said program goes in line with the directives of the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques towards applying e-government at all governmental sectors.
It aims at achieving the unified use ICT in the health sector, relying on four main pillars. These pillars are the patient care, cooperation integration and coherence, transformation that would enable the Ministry of Health to create the proper environment for gathering the Saudi citizens' and residents' health data, making sure that such data could be exchanged with the other various governmental bodies, which will be reflected on the development and growth of the health services, and increasing their accessibility to patients, thus gaining their satisfaction.
According to Dr. al-Yamani, “the role shouldered by the ICT General Department is centered on improving the patient care services, achieving better communication among all MOH hospitals, linking them together in a national database, facilitating the patient mobility service, and developing a performance measuring program, in addition to providing distinguished technological services meant to support the MOH activities, and giving an impetus to the services of the Saudi e-Health Transactions Program, and continuously developing them.”
For his part, the Advisor to the Minister of Health and Supervisor General of ICT, Dr. Abdullah al-Weheibi, pointed out that the ICT General Department adopts a plethora of projects in the field of e-health transactions. Besides, it works on preparing the MOH's services for transformation into e-services, aside from promoting awareness of the benefits of such a transformation towards electronic work.
Dr. al-Weheibi further expounded that the ICT has managed to accomplish more than 40 e-projects thus far, most notably the patient questionnaires, the Health Services Unified e-Portal (1st phase), and the Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN), blood banks centers statistics, in addition to the unification and centralization of the regions' databases.
“As for now,” he added, “there are over 33 projects underway, in addition to nine projects under technical analysis and awarding. It is noteworthy, meanwhile, that the E-Health is a comprehensive national edifice embodied in the Strategic Plan for the Saudi e-Health Transactions Program (Rabet), which the Ministry of Health envisages to be the hub for linking all public and private health sectors in an integrated system that would ensure an interrelated and coherent base of health services in the Kingdom. By so doing, information will be unified, duplication will be averted, waste will be curbed, and thus resources will be best exploited.”