Report on Evidence-Based Medicine in Saudi Arabian Healthcare System

This report provides an overview of Evidence-Based Medicine (EBM) in Saudi Arabian healthcare. It highlights the adoption of EBM in the late 90s and the formation of an EBM Advisory Board. The report discusses the benefits of EBM, such as decreasing infectious diseases, reducing hospital stays, and improving the quality of care. It also addresses the challenges, including a lack of training among newly recruited healthcare professionals and the pressure on hospital wards. The report references WHO reports indicating a decrease in infectious diseases in Saudi Arabia due to EBM. It emphasizes the need for more trained healthcare professionals and the importance of a dedicated healthcare infrastructure to support EBM education, referencing the Sicily consensus statement. The report concludes by calling for government action to improve the healthcare professional-to-patient ratio and reduce work stress, thereby enhancing EBM implementation. Several sources are cited to support the analysis.

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Healthcare
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Name of the University
Author Note

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Evidence-based medicine (EBM) is accredited as one of the greatest medical
advances in the 20th century in healthcare. They offer primary agenda for the movement’s
renaissance and focusing on delivering useable evidence that can be used to get optimal
treatment (Prasad & Ioannidis, 2014). In Saudi Arabia, the concept of EBM was introduced
during late 90s and in order to manage it, EBM Advisory Board was formed. Hoffmann,
Montori and Del Mar (2014) highlighted that the application of the EBM helps in decreasing
the overall rate of occurrence of the infectious diseases. Decrease in the infectious diseases
lead to decrease in the length of stay at the hospital or the unwanted hospital admission and
thereby helping to decrease the overall cost of care. Moreover, proper application of the EBM
prevents recurrence of the infectious diseases or other non-communicable diseases leading to
additional decrease in the cost of care. According to the reports published by WHO (2018),
there is a decrease in the occurrence of the infectious diseases in Saudi Arabia and EBM
holds the highest credentials behind this achievement. EBM also promotes shared decision-
making among the doctors, further improving the quality of care by multidisciplinary team
approach. However, Greenhalgh, Howick and Maskrey (2014) argue that apart from the
benefits there are certain negative consequences associated with EBM too. For example,
importance on evidence could devalue science and knowledge that is associated with the
clinical experience.
The main healthcare practitioners who are unfamiliar with the concept of the EBM are
the newly recruited nursing professionals and the main reason behind this is lack of adequate
knowledge and training. The junior doctors also lack proper knowledge and experience about
the process of implementation of the EBM under clinical settings (Lehane et al., 2018).
The main shortcomings behind the comprehensive implementation of the EBM are
increase in the pressure at the hospital ward and lack of proper training and knowledge of the
healthcare professionals (Lehane et al., 2018). According to the report published by Arab

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News (2018), there is dearth in employee strength in Saudi-Arabian healthcare care. By the
end of 2020, at least 10,000 new doctors are required to be recruited in order to manage the
work-pressure. The education of the EBM among the newly recruited healthcare
professionals will require a committed healthcare infrastructure, which will support the
healthcare organization to deliver the evidence-based practice of medicine. The infrastructure
must target the respective competencies of the healthcare professionals while educating them
about the importance and the mode of application of the EBM in therapy plan. The drafting
of framework for the EBM education and training can be done through the application of the
Sicily consensus statement on EBM implementation skills and knowledge. Sicily will help to
outline the minimum curriculum for optimal implementation of EBM education. Moreover,
the government of Saudi-Arabia must come forward towards recruiting more trained
healthcare professionals in order to improve the patient : healthcare professionals ratio and
thereby helping to reduce the work stress and increasing the implementation of EBM (Lehane
et al., 2018).

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References
Arab News. (2018). Saudi Arabia will need an additional 10,000 doctors by 2020, say
experts. Access date: 7th Feb 2019. Retrieved from:
http://www.arabnews.com/node/1317151/saudi-arabia
Greenhalgh, T., Howick, J., & Maskrey, N. (2014). Evidence based medicine: a movement in
crisis?. Bmj, 348, g3725.
Hoffmann, T. C., Montori, V. M., & Del Mar, C. (2014). The connection between evidence-
based medicine and shared decision making. Jama, 312(13), 1295-1296.
Lehane, E., Leahy-Warren, P., O’Riordan, C., Savage, E., Drennan, J., O’Tuathaigh, C., ... &
Lynch, H. (2018). Evidence-based practice education for healthcare professions: an
expert view. BMJ evidence-based medicine, bmjebm-2018.
Prasad, V., & Ioannidis, J. P. (2014). Evidence-based de-implementation for contradicted,
unproven, and aspiring healthcare practices.
World Health Organisation. (2018). Saudi Arabia: Disease outbreak news. Access date: 7th
Feb 2019. Retrieved from: https://www.who.int/csr/don/archive/country/sau/en/