The role of the COVID-19 pandemic in expediting digital health-care transformation: Saudi Arabia's experience

• Published in: Informatics in medicine unlocked 2022, Vol.33, p.101097-101097, Article 101097
• Main Authors: Alkhalifah, Joud Mohammed, Seddiq, Waleed, Alshehri, Badr Fadhel, Alhaluli, Alhanouf Hani, Alessa, Mohammed Mesfer, Alsulais, Naif Mansour
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: COVID-19; Digital health transformation; E-Health; Informatics; Mobile applications; Saudi Arabia
• ISSN: 2352-9148; 2352-9148
• DOI: 10.1016/j.imu.2022.101097

A comprehensive literature review of Research engines was conducted up to March 2022 to retrieve the articles. We considered all published data, press briefings, and announcements by the Ministry of Health of Saudi Arabia (MOH). The search included both sources in English and Arabic. Thus, this paper aims to give a comprehensive overview of the evolution and role of telemedicine and E-health represented in multiple informatics mobile applications during the COVID-19 pandemic in Saudi Arabia. As a component of its subjective drives, the MOH has launched and developed a total of 12 mobile applications from 2012 to 2019, three apps of which were developed during the COVID-19 pandemic. My health “Sehhaty” was the cornerstone of telemedicine services provided by the MOH in Saudi Arabia during the COVID-19 pandemic. Virtually booked physician appointments exceeded 3.8 million. Appointment “Mawid” app number of users sprinted from 4 million to 25 million users and the number of appointments booked in the same app went from 8 million to 100 million appointments in pre-COVID-19 compared to the post-COVID-19 period. Furthermore, the Health 937 hotline numbers grew to 24.6 million calls. The Health “Seha” app provided 2 million remote medical consultations with an almost 8-fold increase compared to pre-COVID-19 times.