World’s largest virtual hospital enhances cutting-edge health access for millions

Today’s global healthcare landscape is marred by stark inequalities. Nearly half the world’s population lacks access to sufficient healthcare services, while the costs of global expenditure on healthcare remains above 10 per cent of global GDP, according to recent figures. An ongoing disparity in healthcare quality, often prohibitively long distances between homes and hospitals, and a looming deficit of 10 million specialised health workers by 2030 further compound these challenges.

But in this context, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia is developing a raft of innovative, advanced technology-enabled solutions that are changing the face of healthcare, as it pursues ambitions to deliver a world-leading, accessible and affordable healthcare ecosystem.

As one immediate example, the “hospital at home” experience has been realised, with the establishment of the world’s largest virtual hospital, the Seha Virtual Hospital (SVH).

Powered by its connection to 170 hospitals in Saudi Arabia, the virtual hospital offers routine consultations and access to doctors covering 65 specialties to 480,000 patients per year, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

SVH, which has just entered its second year of operation, has dramatically reduced the length of hospital stays, the number of readmissions and significantly increased patient satisfaction. It has also been able to offer its remote services to survivors of recent earthquakes in Syria and Turkey.

This cutting-edge approach to virtually administered healthcare has created a hospital at home for millions of people in Saudi Arabia and the wider region, which is especially critical for rapidly evolving economies and social demographics. With Saudi Arabia’s population expected to increase significantly by 2030, and for a country one-third of the size of the United States, digitised healthcare will enable more people to access specialized healthcare – wherever they are.

In this sense, SVH is an example of innovation meeting necessity. Partly a product of the Covid-19 pandemic, the need to reduce in-person interactions and the immense strain the pandemic put on healthcare facilities, SVH also addresses additional healthcare pressures of an increasing population, longer life expectancies and the need to act fast on non-communicable diseases and natural disaster relief, regardless of geography.

The success of SVH stands as a testament to Saudi Arabia’s steadfast leadership and determination to accelerate human progress by placing people at the centre of its social and economic transformation.

The digitized roots of SVH stem from the Health Sector Transformation Program – one of Saudi Vision 2030’s key Vision Realisation Programs (VRPs) – which aims to deliver on three of the 96 strategic objectives. In short, the HSTP prioritises innovation, financial sustainability and disease prevention while improving access to healthcare, as part of the government’s ambitions to build a resilient human future.

Virtual healthcare is one element of the HSTP. The future of healthcare in the kingdom more broadly will be underpinned by innovations such as next-generation genome sequencing, as in the Saudi Genome Program, artificial intelligence across the entire spectrum of healthcare, and partnerships between the public and private sector.

The Saudi healthcare ecosystem’s engagement and deployment of advanced technologies such as AI is seeing the kingdom becoming a hub for companies from around the world to develop breakthrough AI healthcare tools.

Further, the Healthcare Sandbox, established by the Ministry of Health in line with Saudi Vision 2030, is offering investors and partners a business-friendly environment which is driving public-private collaboration on the incubation of emerging and innovative healthcare technologies.

According to figures from the kingdom’s health ministry, health service accessibility has improved to 94 per cent coverage – up from 81 per cent in 2016. The average lifespan of people in the kingdom is now 77.6 years, up from 74 in 2016, before the launch of Saudi Vision 2030.

Much future progress in Saudi healthcare is expected to be made in partnership with the private sector. It’s a target the Saudi government is optimistic about achieving given the transformative investment value and opportunities the kingdom’s burgeoning healthcare sector offers for private companies from around the world, and those keen to collaborate on designing global solutions to shared socioeconomic challenges.

Healthcare is just one part of Saudi Arabian transformation under Saudi Vision 2030, which aims to diversify the economy and uplift society as a whole. But it is an integral part. And the creation of world-leading digital health capabilities demonstrates not only the scale of the ambition of the kingdom’s vision, but also the attainability of its goals.

For more on Saudi Arabia’s healthcare ambitions, visit: www.moh.gov.sa/