title: Challenges in building health surveillance systems in saudi arabia.
abstract: This paper is aiming to briefly discuss the role of health surveillance system in strengthening public health at both the local and global level and the use of health informatics in effectively creating a database of health status for the population of Saudi Arabia. This review will specifically focus on the challenges that face the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in order to effectively implement surveillance programs making use of advances in health information technology. Data collection was performed through a web-based retrieval of reports and articles and via an interview with an epidemiologist in the Saudi Ministry of Health Surveillance unit. Based on the results of this research, it was found that the use of technology has led to an improvement in communication between various stakeholders (e.g. clinicians, epidemiologists, and decision makers) by providing timely and accurate information needed for informed decision making. However, implementing an ideal model of surveillance systems in Saudi Arabia faces many challenges particularly in training healthcare providers to be qualified and competent enough to ensure the successful implementation of a disease surveillance system.
authors.affiliation: King Saud Medical City (KSMC)/Riyadh Regional Laboratory (RRL), Ministry of Health, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Nouf
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Al Saleem
authors.affiliation: College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Mowafa
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Househ
authors.affiliation: College of Public Health and Health Informatics, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences (KSAU-HS), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ashraf
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: El Metwally
mesh_terms: D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D063005:Health Information Systems / Q000639:trends*; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000639:trends*; D011159:Population Surveillance / Q000379:methods*; D040442:Public Health Informatics / Q000639:trends*; D012529:Saudi Arabia