His Excellency the Health Minister, Dr. Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, has launched (937-1) Service, through which emergency doctors can communicate with each other to exchange information about some critical cases; in an endeavor to improve the health service at all emergency departments and ICU.
He also launched an initiative to improve hypertension care, to be implemented across the Kingdom. The hypertension is the major cause of death and disability worldwide. The experimental implementation of the initiative has proved that hypertension patients are not aware that they have it, leading to a delayed diagnosis and treatment, as well as complications, and that the early diagnosis helps to control and treat it and preventing its complications. He added that 25% of those screened in mosques and schools, as a part of the chronic diseases care category in the modern model of care, have exceeded the normal hypertension reading, without being aware of it. Therefore, 2019 will be the year for combating and preventing the high blood pressure.
During his patronage of the second modern model of care forum yesterday, Monday, he highlighted the Ministry of Health's (MOH) achievements through the model of care during this year and since the first forum last year.
The modern model provides the care services in integrated and connected manner, while the lack of integration in service provision between the health center, hospital and medical city makes the provided services less efficient and costly, he said, noting that the citizen is the cornerstone of the new health system.
"Pregnancy-related and maternal mortality rates was 46 deaths per 100,000 birth in 1990 and 12 per 100,000 in 2015. Through the safe childbirth platform, we seek to reach an average of less than one death per 100,000" adds Al-Rabiah.
He pointed out that the average wait-time at the emergency departments takes more than 4 hours, and the emergency care category reduced it to less than10 minutes at the centers where urgent care clinics were activated, which positively reduced the number of patients at the emergencies of hospitals associated with the model to more than 25%.
He explained that the new model of palliative care category has saved more than SR 5,500,000 even though it is applied to a limited extent.
"The achievements realized through the modern model of care's categories including cost cutting, the time reduced to hours instead of months and improved quality and satisfaction, were not due to additional spending but to the implementation of the modern model of care and a new way of providing the care", he said.
"The modern model of care's main changes include expanding the scope of primary care to become the most important component of the health system, not just a transit station for services, but a health facility enhanced with highly qualified staff and cutting-edge equipment, as well as boosting the preventive care as the main base of the health system, and creating opportunities and mechanisms for individuals, community and institutions to participate in maintaining and boosting health", he said.
Concerning the health project in all policies, which is an important project prioritizing the health in the regulations of all institutions, he said the place we live in is important to our health, and all institutions have a negative or positive impact on our health. He pointed out that all employees including health practitioners and administrators are the most important components of the health system.
"Today, 4 cities are implementing the modern model categories benefiting more than 20,000 patients and within less than a month, by Allah's Grace, MOH will implement the model in 5 new areas, namely: Hafr Al-Batin, Al-Ahsa, Al-Qassim, Madinah and Taif, and by the end of 2019 the model will be launched in another 5 areas. We are committed to implement the model in more than 70% of Kingdom's region by the end of 2020", adds Al-Rabiah.
"Also, 3 specialized categories for accidents, heart attacks and strokes will be implemented during 2019. In addition to the care categories, we have some important initiatives to be launched this year including health promotion units at workplace, to be implemented at MOH and two government agencies, as well as health promotion program in schools, and a number of initiatives to promote community health and to enable the citizen to maintain his health and handle his disease". The forum has displayed a host of success stories of the modern model of care.
The event witnessed inauguration of the mobile exhibition on the model care and its categories, including: preventive care, chronic care, urgent care, mother and child care, optional care and palliative care. The exhibition will be organized in 5 cities during the coming period.
It is noteworthy that the modern model of care seeks to design and implement a new approach to health service provision in an endeavor to maintain the health not just treating patients, and to provide high quality comprehensive healthcare at the right time and place.