A Holistic Framework for Assisting Decision Makers of Healthcare Facilities to Assess Telemedicine Applications in Saudi Arabia

This paper outlines some of the challenges that currently face healthcare systems in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Increasing and continuing demand for healthcare services is aggravated by a critical shortage of health human resources (HHR) and healthcare facilities (HCFs) especially in rural areas. In 2013, 17.8% of the population lived in rural and remote areas with a huge disparity in HCFs distribution, and 76% of physicians and 44.7% of nurses are non-Saudis. Current studies have shown the potential of telemedicine to alleviate these challenges. The use of telemedicine has been adopted and the telemedicine roadmap has been developed by the Ministry of Health (MOH) in KSA in collaboration with Canada Health Infoway (Infoway). This roadmap has identified many barriers and challenges likely to face the implementation of telemedicine in KSA. This paper describes a holistic framework to address these challenges and to assess telemedicine applications in order to assist decision makers of HCFs in KSA. The proposed framework is developed in collaboration with the National eHealth Strategy and Change Management Office in the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Prince Mohammad Medical City (PMMC) in KSA.

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