Under the auspices of His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz AlRabeeah, the Ministry of Health is organizing the Health Insurance Conference “Options & Prospects”, that will be held on 10-11 April, 2011, at the Riyadh International Convention & Exhibition Center. The conference will be attended by a number of local specialists and those concerned with the health insurance field, where they will discuss national, regional and international health insurance experiences. The conference sessions will be held with the participation of public and private health specialists in the insurance field, Saudi universities and the International Advisory Board of the Ministry of Health, State Secretary of the Health Federal Ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany, Mr. Stefan Kapferer in addition to some experts from the World Bank.
Moreover, MOH’s official spokesman, Dr. Khalid Marglani, stated that the conference aims to introduce fact-based scientific concepts for providing healthcare, to exchange knowledge and expertise about health insurance and healthcare services, and to innovate and develop sustainable solutions for health care funding in the Kingdom.
In addition, he added that the 1st day of the conference will discuss health care and funding in the Kingdom in order to understand the different patterns and choices of health care funding in the Kingdom, where the sessions will include an introduction to healthcare systems and financing models globally, the history, model and performance of health insurance in the Kingdom, A look at the impact of insurance on key indicators such as: quality, cost and patient satisfaction, experiences of insurers and private healthcare providers in addition to the challenges and opportunities for health insurance in the Kingdom.
On the other hand, the morning sessions will feature comparisons of several national health systems (Canada, Abu Dhubi, US, Britain, France & Germany) by leading experts. These sessions will inform a broad discussion in the afternoon on best practices, challenges and recent developments in health insurance and the evolution of health systems. Sessions will also provide a background and short history of health systems and health insurance, an overview of the allocation of resources, structures and sources of funding within different health systems, a summary of how leading and mature health systems plan, manage, fund and deliver health services across different levels and a qualitative and quantitative analysis of the pros/cons and key indicators of different health systems.
Furthermore, Dr. Marglani mentioned that the conference will also include a review of the recent developments in global health systems and commercial and social insurance, in addition to a discussion about the challenges facing health systems at the national level, health insurance and the global best practices.