The Ministry of Health (MOH) carried out various projects during the last period, such as the following:
Administrative Performance Improvement Projects:
MOH has launched during the past period various projects to improve administrative performance including:
Finalizing the MOH’s 10-year strategy from 1430H to 1440H to identify strengths, weaknesses, challenges and opportunities experienced by the Ministry. As a result, five strategic objectives were set, atop of them is the National Project for Integrated and Comprehensive Healthcare.
Completing the National Project for Integrated and Comprehensive Healthcare which included a study on the map of distributing health services to all parts of the Kingdom. This plan has taken into account the fair distribution of the medical services to all regions and provinces of the Kingdom, in concordance with unified criteria.
Re-engineering the administrative and financial measures at the Ministry and Directorates with the help of a team from the Faculty of Administrative Science at King Saud University and one of the major companies in this field.
Introducing the institutional work to the Ministry, in addition to establishing the Executive Council and its five committees concerned with projects, supplies, quality, patients' relations and the budget. This move aims to avoid individual decisions at the Ministry and Directorates and encourage and develop teamwork.
Establishing the MOH’s Board for Medical Cities, in which the departments of the five medical cities and specialized hospitals were grouped in a single board of directors so as to unify the work and all administrative and financial measures amongst the medical cities.
Establishing employment committees in the self-employment programs to ensure fairness, justice and impartiality.
Establishing the Security and Safety General Department to ensure safety of facilities and protect them against dangers of fires and others.
Establishing the Patients' Rights Department to ensure fairness and justice in dealing with employees of the Ministry.
Establishing a leadership training program at the ministry as 200 physicians and administrative personnel were trained so far on the leadership styles and arts.
Establishing a medical referral e-program for training workers, and establishing treatment eligibility sections at each hospital to automatically follow up the patient’s transfer among hospitals.
Medical Performance Improvement Projects:
MOH launched during the past period various projects for improving medical performance including:
Establishing a committee for verifying physicians’ certificates and clinical advantages provided for them to ensure that none of them is conducting a practice not within his capacity or specialization at all MOH hospitals.
Establishing critical errors reporting programs, an e-system in which the error is displayed on a screen linking the hospital directly with officials at the Ministry. This system helps the hospital to identify the error, as well as its reasons and means to avoid the occurrence of such problems in the future.
Establishing the Clinical Audit Program to follow up 49 clinical indicators at MOH’s 90 hospitals and measure performance quality at health facilities in general.
Establishing the Physician Productivity Follow-up Program, through which the consultant physician records the number of his surgeries, clinical visits, researches and studies to choose the best physician based on his/her productivity.
Establishing the Bed Management Program which aims at following up the beds movement and the best use of them at MOH hospitals. As a result, the bed rotation rates rose by 20% during the last five years which means providing services for a bigger number of patients.
Establishing the One-Day Surgery Program which contributed to increasing the rate of one-day surgery operations from 2% to 43%, thus conducting over 231,000 surgeries and reducing the waiting time for admission to hospitals or for undergoing surgeries.
Establishing the Medical Risks Program, through which training is provided for a specialist physician at each hospital to follow up any possible medical risk, study it and make use of it.
Establishing the Drug Safety Program, through which training is provided for specialist pharmacist at each hospital to follow up the application of the drug safety guide and educate physicians and nursing staff on the best technique to administer medication and the potential errors and how to avoid them.
Introducing the Australian Medical Coding System (ICO-10) to the MOH’s medical records to simplify registration and coding of diseases.
Establishing the Medical Records Improving Program to gather the medical forms from all hospitals and transform them into electronic one, in addition to restoring all medical record departments and supplying them with computers, necessary equipment and providing training for their staff.
Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Projects:
These projects include:
Health Information System:
Launching the patient's e-file.
Providing all MOH hospitals with e-health information systems.
Connecting all systems inside the hospitals.
Using Cloud Computing Technologies:
Health Electronic Surveillance Network (HESN):
Enhancing the Kingdom's capacity in conducting semi-direct bio monitoring.
Collecting, sharing and analyzing health information required for better management of infectious diseases.
Monitoring statistics and allowing for the statistical analysis of data through early diagnosis.
Picture Archiving and Communication System (PACS):
Neonatal Protection System:
Protecting neonates from abduction or unintentional switching attempts within hospitals.
Applying the Neonatal Protection System in 16 hospitals for obstetrics.
This system is currently being applied in 149 hospitals.
Poison Control e-System (Awtar):
Linking all regional centers of poison control to a central e-system.
Providing specialized e-services for monitoring poisons at the ministry and other government bodies, including ports.
Hospitals' Serious Incidents Registration E-System:
Pre-Marital Screening System:
Scheduling appointments electronically.
Providing pre-marital screening services electronically.
Using e-fingerprinting to verify information.
Geographic Information System (GIS):
Linking MOH to a number of government bodies electronically:
Adopting, developing and complying with international standards:
Construction Projects:
MOH made various achievements during the last five years, such as establishing health centers, hospitals, specialized centers and medical cities. In this regard, MOH conducted a comprehensive study to update its hospitals’ designs to become in line with the international standards as it allocated a single room to every patient in the new designs. Also, the Ministry took into account safety standards, infection control and the safe disposal of medical wastes, dangerous chemicals, nuclear materials and others. In addition, the new designs included places for car parking, necessary green spaces as well as enough spaces for air conditioning and firefighting units, and others