MOH News

MOH Obliges Government and Private Facilities to Use Electronic System to Report Infectious Diseases
01 March 2015
The Ministry of Health (MOH) has announced that, following development of the necessary infrastructure and systems at health facilities throughout the Kingdom, all government and private health facilities are now required to report all cases of infectious diseases through the Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN).
 
Deputy Minister of Health for Public Health and Head of the Ministry’s Command and Control Center (CCC) Dr. Abdul Aziz bin Saeed explained that this step comes as part of the Ministry's endeavor to improve epidemiological surveillance. He added that the HESN system will provide health workers and decision-makers with more accurate information to enable them to provide the highest standard of services, pointing out that it is an e-system that monitors all the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) suspected cases at public and private hospitals across the Kingdom since their admission to a hospital till sampling and delivery of results.
 
Dr. bin Saeed pointed out that the HESN system will contribute to the overall improvement of individual, family and community health by unifying operations and health reports across the Kingdom, increasing accuracy of data and eliminating inconsistencies currently found among hospitals, regions and other facilities of the Ministry.
 
Moreover, he noted that the HESN system comprises many units such as: monitoring and tracking communicable and infectious diseases, outbreaks of epidemic diseases, immunizations and vaccines, vaccine/immunization inventory, work organization and management, communication and public health reporting, saying that more units will be added in the future.
 
He said the HESN system aims at enhancing the Kingdom’s capacity in bio-monitoring and providing healthcare workers with the ability to collect, share and analyze health information required for better management of infectious diseases, adding that it provides a mechanism for early detection of diseases and a system to assess suspected cases; that's to be added to monitoring statistics and allowing for the statistical analysis of data through early detection of potential public health emergencies as soon as possible.
On his part, Dr. Abdullah Al-Wahaibi, the Advisor to the Minister of Health and Supervisor-General of the MOH's Information and Communication Technology, said that development of health information in the Kingdom is a fundamental pillar of the national health strategy and the Ministry has developed a road map for the implementation of the e-health strategy and will achieve its objectives based on a thorough study on the best global practices applicable in this field. He pointed out the Kingdom has implemented a number of electronic programs, including but not limited to, the completion of application of the prevention program against epidemic and infectious diseases (HESN).
 
 
 



Last Update : 03 March 2015 12:44 PM
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