Thanks be to Allah, the Ministry of Health’s (MOH) Referral Program (Ehalati) has managed to refer 5,594 patients, who were in need for referral to specialized or reference hospitals, over the period from July 17th to 23rd, 2016 (corresponding to Shawwal 12th to 18th, 1437H). This comes as a part of the MOH's unstinting support to specialized therapeutic services throughout the regions of the Kingdom.
The Ministry revealed that out of the total cases referred to the specialized and reference hospitals, through an automated paperless system, 3,510 patients (amounting to 62.7%) were approved and the life-saving cases amounted to 159 (at a rate of 2.85%). On the other hand 1,536 progressing cases (at a rate of 27.5%) are still being considered, while 366 cases (at a rate of 6.5%) received treatment at the same hospital, and 182 cases (at a rate of 3.3%) were placed on the waiting list, to be dealt with in the coming period depending on their health condition.
Within the same vein, the Ministry stated that the emergency cases amounted to 1,515 (at a rate of 27.08%). Inpatients number amounted to 1,078 cases (at a rate of 19.27%), and the cases referred to the outpatient clinics amounted to 2,842 (at a rate of 50.80%) of all referred cases.
It's worth mentioning that ‘Ehalati’ Program is reckoned one of the new MOH's e-programs. Advantages of the program include providing medical counseling among physicians in the various medical facilities to study the health condition of the patients without the need to refer them. It also provides all the logistic and coordination-related requirements to refer the patient from one medical facility to another. In addition, Ehalati provides an accurate archiving and statistical system, which contains information of the referred patients through the program to different health facilities across the Kingdom.