PHSSR Saudi Arabia 2025

A comparative analysis between 2012 and 2021 reveals a signi ficant growth in the number of hospitals within the MoH (11% increase), the Government sector (31%), and the private sector (16%). This increase in hospital numbers across the sectors re flects the evolution in healthcare infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. As a result of this expansion, there has been a signi ficant increase of 26.5% in the total number of hospital beds. This growth has been fairly consistent across both the private and public sectors, with only slight variations between the two. In 2021, it has been reported that a total of 77,224 beds were available across all health-related facilities. This translates to an estimated rate of 22.6 beds for every 10,000 population and average length of stay of 3.8 days (4.9 days in 2017). This data underscores the extensive capacity and growth of the healthcare infrastructure. The average waiting period for securing an appointment in outpatient settings has seen a remarkable improvement, decreasing from 35 days in 2017 to 13 days in 2021. This substantial reduction underscores the increased responsiveness of the healthcare system to meet patient needs in a timely manner. The proportion of patients discharged successfully from the emergency rooms also shows improvement, increasing from 85% in 2017 to an impressive 92% in 2021. This positive trend indicates signi ficant advancements in emergency care protocols and patient management strategies (Ministry of Health, 2021). Clinical quality and patient safety standards are addressed through various initiatives and organisations, such as the Saudi Central Board for Accreditation of Healthcare Institutions (CBAHI), which is responsible for setting quality standards and accrediting healthcare facilities in the country, and the MoH Saudi Patient Safety Centre (SPSC), which seeks to improve patient safety culture, practices and outcomes in healthcare settings. Some speci fic examples of clinical quality and patient safety standards include: •Implementation of electronic health records to reduce medical errors and improve patient care; •Adoption of the WHO’s Safe Surgery Checklist to enhance surgical safety and reduce surgical complications; •Promotion of hand hygiene practices to prevent hospital-acquired infections; •Use of incident reporting systems to monitor and learn from adverse events, near misses and other safety incidents; •Implementation of medication management systems to prevent medication errors and improve patient safety. These initiatives and standards aim to improve overall quality of hospital care and patient safety, in line with international best practices. Vision 2030 seeks to expand the role of primary healthcare centres (PHCCs) with primary care prioritized as a key element of the new MOC to tackle the increasing burden of NCDs. In 2021 there was a PHCC density of 0.74 per 10,000 population, a reduction from 0.62 in 2017. However, PHCCs are quite fairly distributed throughout 20 health regions of Saudi Arabia, although there are still some disparities between provinces and efforts must be made to ensure equitable distribution across the country (Al-Sheddi A, et al. 2023). General medicine, family medicine and obstetrics and gynaecology physicians make up the majority of PHCC personnel. Within PHCCs, general practitioners can refer cases to secondary or tertiary hospitals. Ehalah and Ehalati (meaning ‘referral’) are recently introduced innovative online referral programmes that enable referrals between different institutions and organisations, facilitating timely clinical care and access to specialist care. The programme consists of three referral types: (1) life-saving cases (immediately accepted based on nearest location and availability of the required medical service), (2) emergency cases (appropriate action is taken within a maximum of 12 hours) and (3) in-patient cases (handled within 24 hours). All hospitals and healthcare centres in Saudi Arabia are currently incorporating this platform for all referral requests. 60 Sustainability and Resilience in the Saudi Arabian Health System The Partnership for Health System Sustainability and Resilience