Pattern of Virtual Consultations in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: An Epidemiological Nationwide Study

Abstract

Background In the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), little is known about the adoption of virtual consultations (VCs), with most studies being survey-based leading to varying results. This study aims to utilise secondary collected data on the use of both kinds of VCs currently available, and to epidemiologically describe the adoption of these consultations. Methods This retrospective study analysed data provided by the Ministry of Health between January 1st 2021 and June 30th 2022. For both the home-based and the hospital-based consultations, variables included the age and sex of patients, date of consultation, duration in minutes, closure status for the appointment and the governorate in which the patient is residing. A heat map was drawn to present patterns of utilisation across the country. Results The total number of VCs for both types were 1,008,228. For both types, females were higher adopters (54.73%). Of the total number of consultations, 751,156 were hospital-based. Of these consultations, family medicine consultations were the most common (20.42%), followed by internal medicine. Maternity follow-up clinics were higher in home-based clinics. The proportion of patient no-shows was high overall (48.30%). Utilisation was high in urban governorates, and low in rural ones. Conclusion Findings have several implications on health policy. It provides further evidence of the importance of family medicine, where it was the most common speciality even in hospital-based settings. The high variability in the adoption of consultations across rural and urban areas as well as the extremely high number of patient-no-shows warrants further investigation.

Patient Opinions about Virtual Consultations in Saudi Arabia: A Nationwide Cross-Sectional Study

“…Although a few participants expressed negative opinions about virtual health appointments, this population tended to be younger, lived in urban settings, attended specialty clinics (especially psychiatry), used the Sehhaty app, already preferred in-person consultations, and had consultations by telephone. Over an eighteen-month period in 2021 and 2022, over a million virtual consultations were delivered to the population of the KSA [9]; assuming that the virtual consultations remained constant after this time (i.e., ~55,000 virtual consultations a month), our sample represents about 0.5% of the population attending virtual consultations. Given this sample size and that the age (relatively young) and sex profile (female predominance) reflected that of the individuals seeking virtual consultations from population-level administrative data [9], our results are likely to be representative of the overall population attending virtual consultations.…”

“…This study has limitations. As noted above, convenience sampling is inherently biased, and the results relate directly to the study population; nevertheless, this was a relatively large sample with an age and sex profile (female predominance) reflecting that of those seeking virtual consultations from the population-level administrative data [9], thus potentiating that the results are more likely to be generalizable to the wider population. Three-quarters of the population of the KSA are aged between 15 and 74 years [1,2]; that is, the population is relatively young, so, given that older people might face increased barriers to technology use [35], the results may not be generalizable to countries with older populations.…”

“…In the KSA, the Ministry of Health (MoH) delivers telemedicine through different platforms, such as outpatient telemedicine clinics (virtual clinics), 937 call centers, and the Sehhaty smartphone application supported by telemedicine training for healthcare professionals according to the global best practices [7]. These activities have been driven by robust evidence that telehealth delivers comparable quality and outcomes to traditional in-person visits [8] and have culminated in widespread telehealth use such that, in an eighteen-month period in 2021 and 2022, over a million virtual consultations were delivered to the population of the KSA [9]. However, it is not sufficient for telehealth to only compete favorably with in-person visits according to objective measures such as clinical outcomes [8] and value [10].…”