Saudi Arabia
- Federica Andreoni
- Mohammad Al-Ubaydli
Country’s healthcare system in a nutshell
Saudi Arabia has introduced universal health coverage in 2019, ensuring that every Saudi citizen and resident can access healthcare at no cost. Funding for the MOH primarily derives from the annual government budget, which is largely supported by oil revenues (Almodhen and Moneir, 2023)
The healthcare system is structured into three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary care. Primary care is offered through primary healthcare centres (PHCs), which deliver essential services such as preventive care, health education, and screening. Secondary care is provided by hospitals and specialised centres that offer more advanced services, including diagnostic procedures, surgical operations, and emergency care. For the most complex treatments, tertiary care is available at specialised hospitals that focus on procedures such as transplants and cancer therapy.
Despite these advancements, the system faces several challenges, such as a shortage of healthcare professionals, insufficient preventive care, and significant health disparities between urban and rural areas . (Gurajala, 2023) These challenges are addressed in the ‘Vision 2030’ initiative, a government programme aimed at improving public service sectors.
As part of the initiative, in 2022, Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Health established the Health Holding Company (HHC), a state-owned enterprise designed to transform the nation's healthcare system. The HHC's mandate includes taking over the provision of healthcare services, while the Ministry’s role is shifting from service provision to supervisory and regulatory role.
Key reforms that HHC is responsible for implementing include:
Decentralisation: the HHC is responsible for creating and delegating the delivery of healthcare services to approximately 20 regional clusters, to encourage local involvement and improve responsiveness to community needs.
Privatisation: the HHC will privatise numerous hospitals and primary health centres.
Digitisation: the strategy includes a push towards digital healthcare, enhancing data interoperability and expanding access to digital and virtual medical services. This is particularly crucial for the roughly 16% of the population living in remote areas with limited healthcare services access.
Specialised Care Services: the HHC will offer specialised services such as cancer care, renal rehabilitation, and critical care in cardiology and trauma. A new Model of Care, encompassing 42 interventions across six healthcare systems, aims to standardise and improve treatment based on evidence-based practices.
Community Health: The HHC will also focus on disease prevention and early detection, aiming to improve community health.
Workforce Development: The transformation plan includes workforce planning and development, with an emphasis on improving training standards and ensuring an adequate supply of healthcare professionals to meet the country's growing needs.
Public vs private
The pink column refers to the public expenditure as a % of the country’s total healthcare expenditure. The blue dot is the country’s expenditure on health per capita, expressed in international dollars at purchasing power parity.
The national PHR
History
The Saudi Ministry of Health commissioned and launched the Sehhaty application in August 2019 to achieve a number of national goals that focus on healthy lifestyles. In February of 2021, they updated the application to include COVID-19 vaccination appointment registration and test booking.
The development has been carried out by Lean Business Services, a state-owned enterprise (Ministry of Health, 2021).
On the 2nd of September 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 (including XXX) and make the Sehhaty app the national e-platform for providing healthcare services to individuals.
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 residents in the Kingdom, along with their dependents: children, the elderly, or people with special needs. The app is available in Arabic and English.
Sehhaty’s services include:
Immediate virtual 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 primary care doctor for each family member (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 Sehhaty can’t see who accessed their record and when. Sehhaty does not integrate software made by other parties.
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
 Home page: search function for patients to search for their data; weather, which in case of an allergic person will suggest whether to go out or not based on pollen; step count that takes information directly from the mobile phone.
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Bibliography
Almodhen, F. and Moneir, W.M., 2023. Toward a Financially Sustainable Healthcare System in Saudi Arabia. Cureus, 15(10). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10632744/
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
Gurajala, S., 2023. Healthcare System in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Expat Doctor's Perspective. Cureus, 15(5). Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10250784/
Joseph, S. A. (2022, September 2). Saudi Arabia picks Sehhaty app as national e-platform for healthcare services. GCC Business News. Available at: . (Accessed: 1 November 2023).
Ministry of Health, 2021. Partnership Agreement with ‘Lean’. Available at: (Accessed: 1 November 2023).
Ministry of Health, 2023. "Sehhaty" Platform. Available at: . (Accessed: 1 November 2023).
Ministry of Health (n.d.). Health Sector Transformation Strategy, Vision 2030. Available at: https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/Ministry/vro/Documents/Healthcare-Transformation-Strategy.pdf (Accessed 1 August 2024).