Our first export to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia was the launch of our Ensiab OR platform in Riyadh’s First Health Cluster. Ensiab, an advanced digital platform, is delivering clinical care pathways that are redefining patient flow coordination, starting with Operative Room (OR) pathways. This initiative, a collaborative effort between the Ministry of Health, Health Holding Company, Tamer Healthcare, and Open Medical, is digitally transforming hospital flow and operational efficiency, directly benefiting patients and clinicians across the Kingdom.

The initiative began in March 2024 at King Salman Hospital, with a comprehensive period dedicated to scoping, system development, testing, training, and change management, culminating in the official system launch in June 2024. The impact was realised almost immediately throughout the hospital. Ensiab replaced a fragmented environment of multiple legacy systems, including paper-based processes and Excel spreadsheets, with a single, intuitive digital platform. This streamlined workflows for both OR coordinators and OR staff, freeing up valuable time previously spent on manual administration.

The results achieved within the first six months showed the direct positive impact on patient care and clinician efficiency. An impressive 65% reduction in administrative time per patient, equivalent to a saving of 328 hours per month (or 2 full time staff) for every 500 patients. This reclaimed time is now redirected towards direct patient care and more strategic clinical activities.

The operational enhancements led to a 30% increase in surgical volume within three months of launch, meaning more patients are receiving the timely surgical interventions they need. Additionally, despite increased volumes, the achievement of 36-day surgical targets also saw a significant improvement from 40% to 80% attainment, directly addressing the critical issue of surgical wait times, ensuring patients receive care faster.

Beyond these statistics, Ensiab’s pathway optimisation ensures streamlining of patient flow through the care journey, leading to reduced surgical wait times for patients, minimised cancellations, enhanced engagement and ultimately, improved surgical outcomes.

The qualitative improvements are equally impactful. The enforcement of point-of-entry data validation and real-time performance dashboards have significantly improved data quality and visualisation. This provides clinicians and administrators with invaluable insights at a granular level across entire hospitals, as well as in-depth on specialties.

One such example at King Salman Hospital, which serves as a Centre of Excellence for Ophthalmology, particularly highlighted the data capture capabilities. Ensiab has given the hospital detailed analytics on their Ophthalmology service, ensuring they can address scheduled care priorities and optimise patient flow. Notably, since the introduction of Ensiab, all of the Ada’a targets for Ophthalmology have been achieved and exceeded, directly translating to more timely and effective care for a large patient population.

As the OR Ensiab initiative continues its expansion across the Kingdom, its potential develops. The ability for real-time, comprehensive, and centralised visibility of entire regions, and eventually the nation’s, waiting list will enable unprecedented cluster-wide surgical coordination and nationwide surgical insight.

For both patients and clinicians, this will unlock maximal surgical capacity, optimise resource allocation, and strategically manage demand through one unified system. With Ensiab as the central hub, Saudi Arabia is on the brink of a monumental achievement: the world’s first fully connected, nationwide surgical coordination system.