Health informatics: Saudi Arabia

For over 40 years, Saudi Arabia has been the Health Informatics leader within the Middle East. In the early 1970's, the King Faisal Specialist Hospital was the first hospital to locally build and implement a hospital information system (HIS). It was such an achievement for the time that they were referred to as the first Automatic Hospital in the Middle East. Since then, many Health informatics achievements have been attained by Saudi healthcare institutions such as the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and the National Guard Health Affairs. In 2010, the National Guard Health Affairs received the first prize in the Middle East for Electronic Medical Record implementation. Various projects are underway within the kingdom such as: development of a national electronic health record, King Abdullah Arabic Encyclopedia, a ministry of Health electronic health record strategy, Mobile healthcare initiatives and much more. Saudi Arabia has committed billions of dollars to the improvement of the Electronic Health (E-Health) Strategy within the Kingdom to improve healthcare service delivery and patient care.