Health meet to highlight medical advances

Riyadh will play host to an e-health conference, which will shed light on advances made in the field, the Ministry of Health announced yesterday. The conference will take place on April 30.
The two-day event, sponsored by the MoH in collaboration with the Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society (HIMSS), will be held under the patronage of Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah.
“The conference will project the vision of the Kingdom in the field of e-health and highlight the progress made in parallel with the global developments in the sector,” said Deputy Health Minister for Planning and Development Dr. Mohamed bin Hamzah Khoshaim. He said his ministry has invited both national and international specialists in the IT field to enlighten the audience about the highlights and advances made in the sector.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), e-health is the combined use of electronic communication and information technology in the health sector. It is the use of Information and Communication Technology ( ICT ) to enable telehealth, pre-authorization, claims acceptance, payment generation for health services and a host of other services.
Deputy Health Minister for Planning and Health Economics, Dr. Mohamed bin Rashed Al-Yamani, said the MoH will present a worksheet at the conference to elaborate the methodology to improve health care results and increase competencies in general.
Al-Yamani said the program aims at providing world-class medical infrastructure, targeting all segments of society. “With its unique plans, MoH is able to cover five health regions, 13 health provinces and some 300 hospitals in the Kingdom,” he said.
Adviser to health minister and supervisor-general of ICT, Dr. Abdullah bin Ahmed Al-Wohaibi, will give an elaborate account of the latest information and updates on all e-health projects accomplished in the Kingdom, as well as the evolutionary phases of each project. He will also touch upon the achievements and the deadlines of the projects that are under way.
George Halferson, chairman of the board and executive director of Kaiser Permanente group of hospitals in the United States, and Denis Giokas, the executive director of Technology Department at Canada Health Infoway, will discuss recent developments in the field of health information technology, and the future approaches and objectives connected to the use of information technology to develop the quality of health care in the Kingdom.
Meanwhile, the MoH is making extensive arrangements to welcome the Portuguese Minister of Health, Dr. Paulo Macedo, who will arrive on an official three-day visit on Saturday.
Al-Rabeeah is slated to hold talks with the visiting health minister to discuss the means of cooperation between the two countries in the field of health care.
As part of the prepared program, the Portuguese minister is to visit King Fahd Medical City and King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center during his tour to the capital city.
Dr. Louis Vittorio, chairman of the Portuguese Ministry of Health Board, will also accompany the visiting minister during the talks.