The Cochlear Implant Center at King Abdulaziz Specialized Hospital - Al-Jouf has successfully conducted a bilateral cochlear implantation for a child. The surgery is the first-of-its-kind in the northern region.
According to Al-Jouf Health Affairs, the center so far has conducted more than 21 cochlear implantation surgeries and is expected to be raised to 50 surgeries during 2018, noting that around 15 cases are on the waiting list and other cases are still under evaluation.
The center features an advanced audiology and speech unit enhanced with well-trained Saudi medical staff to deal with cochlear implantation patients who are rehabilitated before and after surgery. The center alleviates the suffering of patients who are in need of intensive audio and speech rehabilitation, and follow-up with clinics 2-3 times a week and for a prolonged period, the matter which forced their relatives to accompany them during all the time.
On the other hand, in a qualitative shift, the Ministry of Health (MoH) is expanding its telemedicine services. In so doing, the (e-health) - Seha - App will cover all the Kingdom. The App provides visual medical consultations and allows all citizens anywhere to have face-to-face medical consultations with their doctors across the Kingdom.
MoH seeks to secure more users of the App to enable them more significantly to access visual medical consultations on their smartphones. Also, MoH endeavors to employ cutting-edge technologies to enhance effective communication with service-beneficiaries, and to allow them to get the needed specialized medical consultations. The App is designed to enable audio-video communication from 8 a.m. to 12 a.m. during working days, as well as weekends from 4 p.m. to 12 a.m. Accordingly, users can login into the application, communicate directly with a specialist, and have their cases diagnosed through the application. Hence, the specialist answers users' inquiries, then provides the needed medical consultation and the necessary medical procedure. The App. is free and can be downloaded on Google Play and the App store.
Notably, MOH has recently launched a number of quality service programs to develop work mechanisms and to boost performance. This will in turn help improve health services provided to citizens and secure their satisfaction.