Potential Benefits and Challenges Associated with the Adoption of Mobile health (m-health) in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

The healthcare system in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) is going through transformative changes as part of the Kingdom's 2030 vision. One of the main pillars of this vision is to improve the healthcare and wellbeing of Saudi citizen. The area of mobile health (m-health) focuses on the use of mobile and Internet technologies for improving healthcare delivery. From the healthcare perspective, the introduction of new and innovative approaches of mobile and digital health solutions in the KSA are timely to enable efficient and effective healthcare delivery services that are vital for the realization of the country's 2030 vision in the healthcare and wellbeing areas. The KSA has made noteworthy strides in adopting Health IT and e-health technologies into their healthcare system, and recently a national e-health strategy was drafted and adopted by the ministry of health. However, from the m-health and digital health perspectives there are no national strategy in the KSA in these important areas. The increasing patient population in chronic diseases, combined with spiraling healthcare costs and pressure on healthcare services makes it timely and important to introduce these concepts into the wider healthcare system. These are considered pivotal drivers in the country's healthcare and patient care transformation process. Furthermore, the unprecedented penetration and usage of smart phones and internet access by the KSA population can drive this change towards accelerated and wider adoption of m-health and digital health services.