Country’s healthcare system in a nutshell

Health care in Saudi Arabia is a national healthcare system in which the government provides free universal healthcare coverage through a number of government agencies. There is also a growing role and increased participation from the private sector in the provision of health care services. Saudi Arabia has been ranked among the 26 best countries in providing high-quality healthcare.

The Ministry of Health is the major government agency entrusted with the provision of preventive, curative, and rehabilitative health care for the Kingdom's population. The Ministry provides primary healthcare services through a network of healthcare centers (comprising 1,925 centers) throughout the kingdom. It also adopts the referral system which provides curative care for all members of society from the level of general practitioners at health centers to advanced technology specialist curative services through a broad base of general and specialist hospitals (220 hospitals). The ministry is the lead Government agency responsible for the management, planning, financing, and regulating of the healthcare sector. It also undertakes the overall supervision and follow-up of health care related activities carried out by the private sector.

Public vs private

The national PHR

History

The Saudi Ministry of Health developed the Sehhaty application which was initially launched in August 2019 to achieve a number of national goals that focus on healthy lifestyles. In February of 2021, the application was updated to include COVID-19 vaccination appointment registration and test booking.

The development has been carried out by Lean Business Services, a private company which has partnered with the Ministry of Health.

On 2 Sep, 2022 Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Health (MoH) announced that the Sehhaty app has become the national platform for the healthcare needs of individuals, and that all government bodies in the health sector were going to be integrated with Sehhaty to provide health services through the app.

The MoH made the announcement while signing a cooperation agreement with the Digital Government Authority (DGA) in order to merge all health sector platforms and make the Sehhaty app the national e-platform for providing healthcare services to individuals.

The agreement between the MoH and DGA aimed at several matters, such as merging the health sector apps and platforms and improving the patients' experience in the health sector as well as facilitating and accelerating the deal with the government bodies. Furthermore, it intends to provide consultation services with regard to digital government and achieve efficiency of digital spending for government services. The agreement was aimed at positively impacting patients: through the unification of data sources, its goal is to achieve a better level of services in the healthcare sector, ultimately increasing patients' satisfaction rate.

Features

Sehhaty platform serves all individuals, citizens, and residents in the Kingdom, along with their dependents, including children, the elderly, or people with special needs. The service is available in Arabic and English.

The platform provides users in the Kingdom with a wide range of health services provided to facilitate the provision of integrated healthcare to individuals, and these services include:

• Immediate consultations.

• Booking and reviewing appointments.

• Remote appointments.

• Search for medication.

• Digital Health Wallet.

• Review sick leaves and medical reports.

• Women's health.

• Dependents’ services.

• A doctor for each family (My Doctor).

• Record of children's vaccinations and appointments

• Following-up vital signs (Know Your Numbers service).

• Counting steps.

• Saving a list of medicines.

• Educational content.

• COVID-19 screening appointment.

• COVID-19 vaccines appointment.

• Vaccinations appointment

• Early warning of weather conditions for asthmatics.

Challenges and areas for improvement

There is no ability for patients to view an access log i.e. unlike other platforms, users of Sehatty can’t see who accessed their record and when.

Published outcomes - statistics

Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any statistics about the use of Sehhaty in Saudi Arabia. If you have access to this information or can put us in touch with someone who has, please contact us at book@patientsknowbest.com

Screenshots

Bibliography

Dawood, A. M., & Alkadi, K. S. (2022). Evaluating Usability of Telehealth Sehhaty Application Used in Saudi Arabia During Covid-19. Studies in health technology and informatics, 295, 285–288. https://doi.org/10.3233/SHTI220718

Joseph, S. A. (2022, September 2). Saudi Arabia picks Sehhaty app as national e-platform for healthcare services. GCC Business News. Available at: https://www.gccbusinessnews.com/saudi-arabia-picks-sehhaty-app-as-national-e-platform-for-healthcare-services/. (Accessed: 1 November 2023).

Ministry of Health. (26 February 2023). "Sehhaty" Platform. Available at: https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/eServices/Sehhaty/Pages/default.aspx. (Accessed: 1 November 2023).

Wikipedia contributors. (2024). Healthcare in Saudi Arabia. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_in_Saudi_Arabia . (Accessed: 1 November 2023).

https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/Ministry/Partnerships/Pages/Lean-Company.aspx