Saudi Gazette report

RIYADH — Saudi Arabia' Ministry of Health has launched the first virtual hospital in the Middle East on Monday, under the name of (Seha Virtual Hospital).

The hospital was inaugurated by Minister of Health Fahd Al-Jalajel with Minister of Communications and Information Technology Eng. Abdullah Al-Sawaha in attendance.

The Governor of the Digital Government Authority Eng. Ahmed Bin Mohammad Al-Suwayan and Ministry of Health official spokesman Dr. Muhammad Al-Abdel Ali too were present.

The Seha Virtual Hospital is distinguished by being the largest in the world, the first of its kind in the Middle East, as well as the latest in virtual healthcare.

The virtual hospital is specialized facility as it uses the latest innovative technologies to provide specialized services to support health facilities in the Kingdom.

Through which it supports 130 hospitals around Saudi Arabia with a number of rare specialties, in addition to providing more than 30 specialized services in different medical specialties and subspecialties.

Additionally, it will contribute to transferring expertise to newly graduated doctors to raise the efficiency of medical services and provide its access throughout Saudi Arabia, as well as providing a service for receiving requests and inquiries from all hospitals through the various specialized clinics.

The Seha Virtual Hospital comes in line with achieving the goals of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030, as it is one of the priority initiatives in the health sector transformation program.

This initiative serves the vision and enhances the culture of virtual medicine in health authorities, in terms of providing the best virtual health services at the national and global levels.

The Health Minister Al-Jalajel said that the hospital will harness the latest virtual healthcare technologies in a qualitative manner, with the aim of facilitating and enabling citizens to obtain timely consultations and come up with solutions that enrich them from going to the hospital, as patients will be able to communicate with doctors remotely.

He added that the hospital aims to transfer expertise between doctors and specialists and provide the best consultants in all cities and villages around the Kingdom through telemedicine.

From his side, the Ministry of Health official spokesman Dr. Al-Abdel Ali stated that the hospital would continue to build bridges of cooperation by providing its services on a continuous and advanced basis in the coming stages.

The Seha Virtual Hospital will include the expertise of the best and most specialized health consultants in rare and complex specialties, he said.

He added that it will help citizens in all regions of Saudi Arabia to benefit from the services that been provided by the hospital, whether directly and in complete privacy for the beneficiary who needs care, or from by the system' support from which the beneficiary receives the health service.

The virtual services provided by the hospital include: virtual services for electroencephalogram patients (EEG), virtual clinics, stroke patients, critical care patients (ICUs), as well as radiology.

It is noteworthy that the hospital aims to use the latest treatment technologies, and to invest in expanding the employment of medical robots, in order to save time for patients and to ease the hardship of travel and transportation for them.

The Seha Virtual Hospital will also facilitate quick access by providing home health services for critical cases that require specialized and accurate consultations.