Mikel Prieto, a surgical director from Mayo Clinic based in Minnesota who had discussions with chief executive officer of King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center Dr. Qassim Al-Qassabi said the Kingdom’s health services are patient-centered and it has invested adequate funds to look after the health of citizens and foreign workers through its insurance scheme.

Prieto was leading a four-member delegation including Misty Hathaway, Emily A. Hiatt and Smail Ait Ali. During the brief stay in Riyadh, the visiting delegates met with officials of the Ministry of Health and other health facilities in the capital.

Prieto said King Faisal Hospital was an excellent tertiary care hospital and its transplant programs are world-class.

Describing it as a familiarization tour, Prieto said the visiting team wanted to find out how best Mayo Clinic could cooperate with the Kingdom’s hospitals to enhance its health care services. He pointed out that every year, the clinic gets around 600 Saudi patients who suffer from complex cases since the needed expertise was not adequate for their successful treatment.

“We are trying to identify new ways of delivering the health services in cooperation with our Saudi counterparts,” the visiting physician said, adding that his clinic could offer remote consultation through “e-electronic consults,” which is a new scheme where medical problems could be resolved through the Internet. “We can also conduct video conferencing to offer medical advice to physicians as well as patients in the Kingdom,” he added.

Other areas where the two parties could cooperate include patient care, providing educational opportunities, organizing medical symposia, exchange of experts to conduct refresher courses on latest medical advances and getting professionals to train medics and paramedics in the Kingdom.