2030 eHealth and Beyond Conference begins

The ehealth and Beyond Conference was opened on Monday by Dr. Suliman Mohamed Al-Malik, CEO, Medical Services Department (MSD), Ministry of Defense. Under the patronage, of the Deputy Crown Prince HRH Prince Mohammed Bin Salman Al Saud,  Saudi and International leaders gathered medical best practices to bring incorporating technology and processes in the Kingdom that is in-line with Vision 2030.

A primary focus at the conference was to improve record keeping inside healthcare organizations. The conference is designed to raise awareness so that hospitals are able to make wise investments in important process and documentation improvement.

John H. Daniels, the Global Vice President for HIMSS Analytics briefed attendees on the Electronic Medical Record Adoption Model (EMRAM) as the global standard for healthcare IT adoption.  The EMRAM provides a methodology used by many hospitals in the Kingdom for evaluating the progress and impact of electronic medical record systems. There are eight stages (0-7) that measure a hospital’s implementation and utilization of information technology applications.

John Daniels notes that there are key success factors for hospitals to use IT effectively in his global evaluations.  “These are hospitals who are committed to using data to drive improved outcomes related to patient safety, quality outcomes, and operational efficiencies. They are also focused on achieving a paperless medical record environment because they recognize the value of capturing and storing data electronically to support their quest for improvements. And finally, continuous process improvement permeates the culture of the organization starting with the top leadership and reverberating throughout all levels of the organization.”

Speaking on his view on The Changing Role of the Healthcare CIO Dr. Mustafa H. Qurban, Consultant and CIO, King Fahd Military Medical Complex expressed that the CIO’s role has changed today. At first the IT department was first simply a support service where the department was called on largely to fix hardware issues. Now that is changing, where the data captured presents deeper and greater value. The IT function in healthcare is moving to primary service function that is more involved in the strategy and business operations, which means IT professionals need to be a part of the everyday patient decision making .

Reinforcing this concept, the transition to largely digtial and informtics engineered into operations Monief Eid, PACS Program Director, MOH during his speech explained today project management concepts are applied in the National PACS (picture archiving and communication system) Program, to lead and manage the National RIS/PACS Project execution across hospitals in Ministry of Health (250 hospitals and plus) and achieve the objective of bringing filmless/paperless working environment into MOH hospitals  It challenges an old process with new technology to enhance patient care by permitting hospitals to access all patient data -no matter where the data is located, or where the patient is located.