Impact of the COVID-19 on the digital health transformation in Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Saudi Arabia has implemented on an ambitious transformation of its healthcare system under Vision 2030 national development goals. This research investigated how the unexpected COVID-19 health crisis impacted and accelerated the adoption of digital health tools across Saudi healthcare facilities.

An explanatory sequential mixed methods design was adopted to assess this emerging phenomenon. Secondary quantitative datasets from Saudi government reports provided objective adoption metrics indicating technology uptake before, during and after the pandemic, secondary qualitative analysis of academic literature and news articles offered contextual insights into user experiences, outcomes, and strategic responses.

After collecting the data, findings revealed that while Saudi Arabia had made early investments in isolated digital health projects prior to 2016, efforts varied, and adoption rates were gradual. The Vision 2030 agenda recognised healthcare's centrality and made its digitisation a national priority. However, the 2020 COVID-19 outbreak became an unexpected inflection point that urgently catalysed innovation. New mobile health applications were rapidly developed and deployed for infection monitoring, sustaining virtual care access during lockdowns, and managing mass vaccination campaigns. Official statistics indicated over 20 million Saudi citizens registered on platforms like “Sehhaty” and “Tawakkalna” during the crisis.

However, findings also highlighted persisting fragmentation between applications, interoperability issues impeding data exchange, physician readiness gaps limiting advanced analytics adoption, and ethical risks from swift digitisation without corresponding cybersecurity and privacy safeguards. As it enters post-pandemic recovery, progress is focusing on addressing these challenges by recommending unified governance frameworks, workforce upskilling programmes and localised regulations adapted from global best practices.

In conclusion, COVID-19 accelerated Saudi Arabia's digital health transformation while revealing adoption challenges requiring concerted action. This research offers data-driven assessments of achievements, user outcomes, persisting limitations and forward-looking recommendations to inform ongoing strategic efforts to establish itself as a leading model of patient-centric, technology-enabled healthcare by 2030 in fulfilment of Vision 2030 goals.