His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Muhammad bin Ali Alhayaza, launched, yesterday evening, the Common e-Health File Project at Burj Rafal Hotel Kempinski Riyadh.
The inauguration started with a recital of the Holy Quran, followed by the speech of the Secretary General of the Saudi Council for Health Services (CHS), Dr. Yaaqoub bin Youssef Al-Mazrou', who said that the Common e-Health File Project is reckoned a qualitative leap in connecting and exchanging information amongst different systems using unified standards. "To that end, it contributes to improving the ability to manage services and control diseases,” he elaborated. “It also raises quality of health services, and provides personal healthcare for patients by making information from all participating institutions available and accessible, as well as limiting medical-file-associated errors, and reducing costs in general."
Within the same vein, the Director General of the E-Government Program (Yesser), Eng. Ali bin Saleh Al-Somaa, delivered a speech in which he pointed out that “the Common e-Health File Service links the government bodies participating in providing healthcare services with the common e-government transactions system and network supervised and managed by Yesser.”
Over and above, the representative of the health sectors participating in the project, and the Director of the Health Information Technology Affairs, Dr. Osama Abdulrhman Alswailem, delivered a speech underlining that the idea of creating the Common e-Health File has direct benefits in providing distinguished healthcare. He added that, in its first stage, the project aims at establishing technology infrastructure to link the different health sectors to respond to certain health problems such as coma cases.
It followed that attendees watched an introductory film about the Common e-Health File Project, after which the participants in the project were honored.
In a press statement following the celebration, HE the Minister of Health expressed his happiness over the launch of the Common e-Health File Project by the Saudi Health Council, in collaboration with the common e-government program (Yesser), covering a host of hospitals.
He said, "We are reaping part of the fruits of the unlimited support of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz, his Crown Prince and Deputy Crown Prince, may Allah preserve them, to the health sector." Meanwhile, he confirmed the keenness of the Health Council's employees to apply the news service in all hospitals and health sectors
Dr. Alhayaza explained that the Ministry aims at consolidating efforts to make a unified medical file for every citizen, to be used in the health centers inside the Kingdom, pointing out that the work is accumulative and complementary, and that the medical file will cover all diseases.
It is noteworthy that the Saudi Health Council has launched a common e-system project for exchange of medical information amongst the health sectors, in collaboration with the e-government program (Yesser). It’s the first project of its kind kingdom-wide. The first stage will be linking the project with the participating hospitals with the aim of finding the correct information to deal with the cases in the emergency sections, given that work in these section requires dealing with the cases in quickly, and taking the appropriate decision based on the availability of sufficient health and personal information to take such decisions.