His Excellency the Health Minister, Dr. Tawfiq bin Fawzan Al-Rabiah has launched today (Thursday) the Heart Forum 2019 at the Bay La Sun Hotel in King Abdullah Economic City in Rabegh. The 3-day gathering is organized by the Ministry of Health (MOH). The minister was briefed on MOH's heart services during 2019 by the Vice-Minister for Health Affairs Mr. Hamad Al-Duweila'. The presentation featured an overview about the development of the heart services provided over the past three years in addition to highlighting efficiency indicator of cardiac catheterization consultants and laboratories, including four indicators: cardiac services index, cardiac catheterization index, open-heart surgery index and continuing education index.
Concluding his presentation, Al-Duweila' pointed out to MOH's aspirations towards cardiac services through a mechanism for activating the visiting teams, developing a mechanism for doctors, increasing the efficiency and quality of cardiac departments and centers, engaging patients and their families in treatment plan and employing technologies to facilitate access to heart patients and their treatment.
Then, Al-Rabiah gave a speech in which he lauded the efforts exerted to provide high-quality services, pointing out that MOH will brief the forum on the initiatives it launched to achieve the objectives of the Kingdom Vision 2030 in the field of cardiac health, particularly that the myocardial ischemia and coronary artery diseases (CAD) are the leading cause of death (61 deaths per 100,000 people) in 2017.
"MOH adopts a number of pillars to develop preventive services for heart patients by launching a number of initiatives such as: walking, smoking cessation, diabetes control, calories control and controlling the use of hydrogenated oils, in addition to facilitating access to heart services. The initiatives also include: reducing the intake of salt and sugar, monitoring trans-fat, as well as controlling the quality and efficiency of heart services" he said.
He pointed out to MOH's programs to develop heart patient care services across the Kingdom in 2019, revealing a new project "Taji" about electronic transformation in archiving of cardiac radiology and catheterization at a number of centers across the Kingdom.
Referring to the initiatives on service quality, he said that MOH is keen to spread cardiac catheterization departments and centers in Kingdom's regions and provinces, to enhance technology usage including: monitoring patient at home, e-prescription and to expand training and scholarships in light of the support MOH receives from the government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz and the Crown Prince HRH Muhammad bin Salman bin Abdulaziz, may Allah protect them.
Then, Dr. Al-Rabiah honored a number of distinguished specialized programs in heart disease surgery. These programs include: "To get to your heart" program, "transcatheter aortic valve replacement" program at Madinah's Cardiac Center, pilgrims heart services at King Abdullah Medical City in Makkah, in addition to "artificial heart" program at Prince Sultan Cardiac Center in Al-Ahsa, "pediatric heart surgery" program in Qassim region and therapeutic services initiative across the Kingdom.
The forum reviewed several initiatives launched by MOH to achieve the Kingdom Vision 2030, including "severe heart attack in Riyadh region", "national strategic plan for heart" at the Vision Realization Center (VRC). The forum discusses the importance of scientific researching and identifying the risks of cardiovascular diseases, as well as leadership training initiatives 2030. The forum will review other initiatives such as: "towards achieving the Kingdom Vision 2030" initiative, "cardiovascular disease risk assessment – presenting sample results in Riyadh". In addition, the forum will discuss training and scholarship opportunities in Britain and Europe for doctors, nurses and technicians, and cloud computing issue.
Also, the forum will hold a workshop to improve heart services and discuss infrastructure projects, workforce and supplies to come up with recommendations that will improve access to patients, performance and quality. On the last day, a workshop will be held to evaluate MOH's senior officials including cardiac centers' officials.