Saudi Arabia’s new referral center to oversee 15 major medical works, from Airlift to Prisoner release. world News
TL; Dr:
- Saudi Arabia has set up a new medical referral center under the Ministry of Health, which is for everyone’s maintenance, regulation and coordination
Patient referral Processes, both in the country and abroad. - The Center is assigned with 15 major responsibilities, including managing air medical withdrawal, reviewing long -term medical leave and disability cases, and monitoring hospital’s ability and patient transfer.
- An overseas committee, including representatives of major ministries and healthcare institutions, will oversee the center to ensure efficient, legally obedient patient care and well -organized medical service distribution throughout the state.
Saudi Arabia has approved a National Medical Referral Center under the Ministry of Health, according to the Saudi Gazette, assigning 15 strategic responsibilities to organize and maintain patient referral and treatment coordination in the state and abroad. The move has been announced after approval from the Council of Ministers and published in the official gazette Umm al-Qura, which is designed to streamline the access of healthcare, adapt the use of resources and ensure strong regulatory inspections as part of the ongoing health sector change of the state.
purpose and scope
The Medical Referral Center has been tasked to regulate, supervise and adapt medical referral procedures in Saudi Arabia. Its scope includes both domestic and international patient transfer, including air therapy withdrawal and coordination of treatment outside the state. The Center will implement decisions from the High Medical Commission (under approval by the Health Minister), overseeing the health attachments serving citizens abroad, and introducing an integrated approach to the use of the hospital bed and monitoring the clinical capacity.
Main responsibilities and functions
The 15 responsibilities of the new unit, as detailed in the official communal, include:
- Setting, executing and monitoring standardized referral procedures for both internal and border transfers.
- The establishment of procedural and operational rules controlling air medical withdrawal, with the authority decision -making authority on withdrawal requests.
- Reviews and acting on requests for medical leave (more than 30 days for civil service employees within Saudi Arabia), all sick leave issued abroad, claims of medical disability, and health-based prisoner release, ensuring adherence to statutory rules.
- Monitoring of patients with health facilities, managing referrals based on monitoring and distribution of patients, capacity of hospitals, efficiency and occupancy rates.
- To coordinate treatment abroad, guide health enclosure, and ensure eligibility of patients for treatment, both domestic and abroad.
- Providing extensive technical support to refer to physicians and health facilities, and creating mechanisms to evaluate service requests and maintain strong data tracking.
- Guarantee transparent reporting and operation, reduce red tape, and align the referral system with vision 2030 objectives to improve efficiency and quality.
Integrated national platform
Center will take advantage of a national, digital platform for construction, referral management and tracking, to basically connect all public and most private health facilities, to add all public and most private health facilities. The platform will enable the available hospital’s capacity, pending referral status, and inter-agency coordination, which forwards the digital change agenda of the Ministry of Health under Vision 2030.
Sect and administrative structure
Administratively, the Center will be directly accountable to the Health Minister and will be integrated within the Ministry of Health. It will be overseen by an inspection committee headed by the Health Minister, from which with representation:
- Ministry of Defence
- Ministry of Interior
- Ministry of national guard health work
- King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Center
- Saudi health holding company
- Saudi Chamber Council
- Council of Saudi Universities
- Saudi Health Council
- National health insurance center
Committee meetings require a majority, which is valid for any decision under the leadership of the chair or their deputy.
Strategic impact
The initiative is part of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 healthcare reforms, aimed at distributing justified, high quality medical services, promoting transparency, and ensuring that complex and emergency matters are matched with the right features at the right time. This is designed to reduce the waiting time, to streamline the patient’s journey and increase the management of both routine and immediate care referral.Saudi Arabia’s Medical Referral Center is ready to replace the patient’s transfer and referral management, both within the state and abroad for treatment. Its construction underlines increasing commitment to digital health, system efficiency and regulatory clarity. This centralized approach is expected to make better resource uses, reduce fragmentation, and ensure that Saudi patients, whether at home or abroad, get a timely, coordinated and legally obedient care.
