A fully virtual reality and augmented reality-enabled virtual hospital will be showcased live on site at the Global Health Exhibition in Malham, Riyadh, this October.
The facility will allow attendees to practice and learn in a safe, immersive environment.
Attendees will have exclusive access to the exhibit during the exhibition between October 21 and 23.
SEHA Virtual Hospital
The exhibit, built around the principles of Saudi Arabia’s SEHA Virtual Hospital, will give Global Health Exhibition attendees a glimpse of the world’s future healthcare services. The SEHA Virtual Hospital, opened in 2022 in response to the worldwide Covid-19 pandemic, is among the world’s first endeavors to introduce large-scale virtual care to mainstream health services.
The hospital, which provides services to over 200 hospitals around the Kingdom, delivers a wide range of virtual services to patients including virtual critical and urgent care, virtual medical support services, virtual scheduled specialized care, virtual home care services and virtual medical consultations.
The virtual hospital also provides multidisciplinary teams, where healthcare professionals in different locations meet easily to review cases and reach faster consensus on treatment pathways.
Using AI to prioritize patients
The SEHA Virtual Hospital utilizes artificial intelligence to rank and prioritise urgent patient needs where intervention is required. Using advanced algorithms, it is capable of rapidly processing imaging for stroke diagnosis, brain CT scans and lung disease diagnosis. It also utilizes internet-of-things technology enabling continuous virtual monitoring of patients living with heart failure. This is particularly important for patients living in remote or rural regions where physical travel to a hospital environment is difficult or impossible.
Virtual Hospital visits also integrate directly with electronic health records and can even remotely manage pharmacy prescriptions, meaning increases in management of patients from their homes. The SEHA Virtual Hospital has already produced impressive results, including a decreased length of stay (LoS) in adult intensive care units to four days, reduced door-to-CT scan in cases of stroke to 25 minutes, door-to-needle times to 28 minutes, and the average time to issue a radiology report to two hours.
The future of health services
“Global Health Exhibition sits at the forefront of medical advancement and technology, making the Virtual Hospital exhibit a perfect fit for attendees who are keen to understand the trajectory of healthcare services for the next decade and the increasing role virtual services play in reaching the widest possible group of patients,” said Rachel Sturgess, group director, Tahaluf, the exhibition’s organizer.
“The model of virtual services being pursued in Saudi Arabia is a benchmark for best-in-class care which makes positive use of today’s technology. As the demand for healthcare services grows while the world’s population ages, use of VR and AR solutions to deliver better and more rapid diagnoses and treatment decisions will become part of the mainstream. We are thrilled to be showcasing a part of that future to over 100,000 health stakeholders at this year’s event.”
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