The Saudi Arabia Ministry of Health and Masimo jointly announced the implementation of an automation solution designed to streamline the process of critical congenital heart disease (CCHD) screening of newborns using Masimo SET®, the first automation of its kind worldwide. This latest phase in Saudi Arabia’s national CCHD screening program, which began in 2016 as part of the Vision 2030 plan addressing improvements in healthcare and other areas, automates the collection and storage of screening data, helping to make the process both more efficient and more accurate.
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In 2016, the Kingdom implemented a mandatory CCHD screening program for all newborns. The program used Masimo Eve™ Newborn Screening Application on Radical-7® Pulse CO-Oximeters® with SET® Measure-through Motion and Low Perfusion™ pulse oximetry technology, according to a press release.
The SET has been shown to outperform other pulse oximetry in over 100 independent and objective studies. In health studies for newborns, including the largest CCHD screening study to date, SET has been shown to significantly improve CCHD screening sensitivity when combined with clinical assessment.
“We are thrilled to be able to announce that in 2018 alone, widespread use of our national CCHD screening protocol, facilitated by Masimo technology, caught 72 instances of CHD that might otherwise have gone undetected. Now, in this next phase, which we plan to implement nationwide by February, we are augmenting our screening program with additional technology – making it the only automated solution that uses Rad-97 and Eve – that we believe will make the process faster, easier for clinicians to perform, and less prone to error, said Dr. Fahad A. Al Aql, advisor to the Ministry of Health responsible for implementing the CCHD screening program.
“Patient identification can be quickly accomplished through barcode wristband scanning, and the results, calculated by Eve, will be collected and uploaded to central EMRs automatically, without the need for manual transcription. More efficient, more accurate healthcare is a cornerstone of Vision 2030. With the support of His Excellency the Minister of Health, Dr. Tawfiq Al Rabiah, we are looking forward to continuing to advance the forefront of healthcare in Saudi Arabia with this implementation.”
