Telehealthcare in KSA: Benefits, Challenges, and Future Scope

This report provides an overview of telehealthcare in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), highlighting its implementation and benefits within the healthcare system. It references the World Health Organization's definition of tele-healthcare and discusses the KSA government's e-Health policy, which aims to connect numerous healthcare units. The report emphasizes the increasing adoption of mobile phones and internet usage in KSA, making telehealthcare a viable solution. It focuses on the advantages of telehealthcare for disabled patients and elderly individuals with multiple diseases, suggesting that it can reduce the strain of conventional care, minimize healthcare costs, and prevent certain health disorders. The report references various studies and governmental reports to support its arguments, concluding that telehealthcare offers a convenient and effective alternative to traditional healthcare in KSA.

Running head: TELEHEALTHCARE IN KSA
TELEHEALTHCARE IN KSA
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As per the World Health Organization (2019), tele-healthcare is the process in which
delivery of healthcare is done using the information and communication technologies to
exchange the information of patient so that diagnosis, treatment and prevention of several
diseases could be achieved. In a governmental report published in 2016, it was mentioned that
the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia or KSA has already created a favourable environment where
people understand the usage of this facility for their healthcare needs (International Trade
Administration, 2019). The government has already created an e-Health policy so that more than
3000 governmental healthcare units could be connected for the implementation of telehealthcare.
In a survey conducted, it was seen that more than 33% people are in favour of this facility and
21% people are willing to use this facility again. Further, as more than 35% people in KSA uses
mobile phones and within that 16% population is connected with regular internet service, hence,
usefulness of this facility in the KSA increases (Moh.gov.sa., 2019).
This care facility should be implemented in care processes for disables patients and
elderly people affected with multiple diseases so that while monitoring such patients, the
strain of conventional care process, and the strategies that challenges their mental and physical
abilities could be minimized (Win, 2015). These strategies would be used to provide such
patients with easier and less stressful diagnostic and intervention approach so that their ailment
could be addressed with effective care strategy. It also decreases the cost of healthcare process as
due to this; the rate of readmission of patients is reduced and increases the utilization of staff to
treat maximum patients (Kao, Cheng & Chien, 2014). Further, there are several disorders of
elderly patients, which could be easily prevented without admitting them in the healthcare
facilities. These disorders are elevated diabetes levels, blood pressure; dehydration and heart
conditions in which providing preventive measures and minimal medication could help the

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patient to monitor and control his/her own health (Choiet al., 2014). Therefore, providing those
patients with instructions to control that could decrease the hospital admission rate and those
beds could be provided to patients who seek hospital admission in crucial conditions. Hence,
with reduced cost of healthcare process and associated measures, it also helps to reduce the
pressure from the healthcare professionals that they used to face while providing quality care to
multiple patients at a time (Kao, Cheng & Chien, 2014). Therefore, in KSA, telehealthcare could
be an easy and effective substitution of conventional healthcare facility for caring for patients for
their convenience and benefit.

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References
Choi, N. G., Hegel, M. T., Marti, C. N., Marinucci, M. L., Sirrianni, L., & Bruce, M. L. (2014).
Telehealth problem-solving therapy for depressed low-income homebound older
adults. The American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry, 22(3), 263-271.
International Trade Administration. (2019). Retrieved from
https://www.trade.gov/topmarkets/pdf/Health_IT_Saudi_Arabia.pdf
Kao, H. Y., Cheng, Y. T., & Chien, Y. K. (2014, June). Develop and evaluate the mobile-based
self-management application for tele-healthcare service. In International conference on
industrial, engineering and other applications of applied intelligent systems (pp. 460-
469). Springer, Cham.
Moh.gov.sa. (2019). MOH News - MoH: All the Kingdom Will be Covered by Telemedicine in
Two Months. Retrieved from
https://www.moh.gov.sa/en/Ministry/MediaCenter/News/Pages/news-2018-03-06-
006.aspx
WHO. (2019). Telehealth. Retrieved from https://www.who.int/sustainable-development/health-
sector/strategies/telehealth/en/
Win, A. Z. (2015). Telehealth can bridge the gap for rural, disabled, and elderly patients. Journal
of the American Medical Directors Association, 16(4), 268-269.