Under the auspices of His Excellency the Minister of Health Eng. Khalid bin Abdulaziz Al-Falih, the Deputy Minister for Supply and Engineering Affairs Eng. Hussein Al-Fakhri opened on Tuesday the Fourth Saudi Forum for Planning, Design and Equipping of Hospitals and its annexed exhibition. It is held under the theme of "The Hospitals Reality in a Confrontation with the Future Challenges." The Forum is organized by the, Saudi Urban Society (Saudi Healthcare Architects) at the Riyadh International Convention and Exhibition Center (RICEC) on Jumada II 27-29, 1437H (Corresponding to April 5-7, 2016).
Al-Fakhri pointed out that the Ministry of Health (MOH) has set its strategy, including objectives, policies and projects, to achieve a future vision by the provision of integrated and comprehensive healthcare according to the highest international quality levels which meet the Saudis needs. He said the MOH created its new slogan "Health First" depending on awareness raising and disease prevention as basic factors that come before treatment and the provision of better medical care. According to Al-Fakhri, this means that the health service system is centered on meeting the health needs in the right place at the right time.
The deputy minister went on, saying that the health sector in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is witnessing unprecedented progress that is crowned by many achievements which have contributed to the improvement of medical services standards in the country, thanks to Allah and then to the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz, HRH the Crown Prince and HRH the Deputy Crown Prince, may Allah protect them.
A number of local and international companies, which are specialized in the fields of planning, designing and equipping hospitals, from public and private sectors take part in the form to exchange views on the latest developments in this domain. The forum is planned to be annexed by an exhibition for the local and international hospital projects.
In its 4th round, the forum aims at providing plans, designs and equips for hospitals in the light of the current challenges which affect the efficiency of operation. The challenges include the exponential growing of technology, the accelerating change of the health map, the necessity of upgrading some hospitals to advanced levels and adding some specialties or increasing beds and related services. The sectors are faced by other difficulties including the new architectural trends, the development of international standards and requirements, the improvement of operational efficiency and safety factors as well as the rehabilitation and maintenance techniques.
This year's round of the forum aims also at spreading knowledge on planning, designing and equipping hospitals and at making its participants acquainted with the latest theories, developments and future prospects of the field. It is an opportunity for exchanging local and international experiences in addition to boosting relations and scientific cooperation in the domain.
The forum covers a number of topics that include flexibility in planning and designing hospitals to accept changes in the future, modernizing the existing hospitals to take in new technologies and conform to the international standards. During the forum, the participants would discuss expansion of hospitals' capacity (by increasing the number of beds and medical specialties) and upgrading them to provide high service quality to overcome the challenges of maintenance, rehabilitation security and safety.
On the sidelines of the forum, a series of seminars would be held and lectures would be delivered to discuss research papers suggested on the forum's main topics. Up to 20 researches would be put up for discussions by a group of specialists from local and international architecture offices in addition to researchers and academics from Saudi Arabia, Arab and foreign countries. A paper titled "In Conformity with tendency towards the National Transformation" would be put on table of discussion during the first day. The discussion would also cover the foreign models and examples for the public and private sectors' experience in designing and constructing hospitals as well as the mechanism of overcoming the cost challenges. Two workshops are scheduled to be held on the sidelines of the forum. The first one is titled, "Operating Department Design" while the second workshop is named "Integration of Medical Planning and Architectural Design of Hospitals". An exhibition would also be held on the verge of the forum for the local and international companies, contractors, consultancy firms and suppliers.