The prince was opening the Saudi e-Health Conference 2012 at the King Faisal Conference Hall. The three-day conference is sponsored by the King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences in cooperation with the Saudi Association for Health Informatics (SAHI) with the support of several other commercial partners.
Health Minister Dr. Abdullah Al-Rabeeah also addressed the gathering at the inauguration, which was followed by an exhibition that was opened by Prince Muqrin.
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More than 360 officials, representatives and experts from about 210 Saudi government agencies met in Riyadh on Wednesday to discuss important aspects of the initiative, said Ali bin Saleh Al-Soma, director general of the Kingdom's e-government program (Yesser).
“The second stage of Yesser was launched after this high-profile workshop on Wednesday discussed the whole range of issues involved in implementing the initiative,” said Al-Soma.
"The system links electronically both of MoH and DGP to share the electronic health certificate information for the purposes of iqama (work permit) issuance and renewal," said Muhammed Al-Yumni, supervisor general of the IT department at the Ministry of Health, at a joint press conference with the General Directorate of Passports at the ministry in Riyadh.
King Saud bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences and the Saudi Association for Health Informatics with the support of several other partners are sponsoring the three-day conference.
The purpose of the e-health event is to bring together both health care providers and information technologists to empower the advancements in the delivery, quality and continuity of health care. The conference will provide many opportunities for interaction and it will also promote the national electronic health initiative launched by the Ministry of Health.
He also confirmed that the application of a fingerprint system for expatriates in the Kingdom has been completed and the system will reduce the number of illegals.
Col. Bader Al-Malek, spokesman of the General Directorate of Passports, said: “This system is linked to the networks of the Interior Ministry and the National Information Center. The program can show the identities of deported persons from the Kingdom who try to re-enter again”.